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REYIEW 



OF /25 " 



PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION; 



SHOWING 



ITS ONLY POPULAR MEASURES TO HAVE ORIGINATED WITH THE 
EXECUTIVE OF MILLARD FILLMORE. 



BY 



ANNA ELLA CARROLL, 

OP MARYLAND, 
AUTHORESS OF THE " GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE," " STAR OF THE WEST," ETC. 



BOSTON: 

JAMES FRENCH & COMPANY. 

NEW YORK: 

MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN. 

1856. 



.C3 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

JAMES FRENCH & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



stereotyped by 
HOBART & BOBBINS, 

New England Type and Stereotype Founderj, 

BOBTOM. 



\yj 



PREFACE. 



The administration of Franklin Pierce is the subject 
of the chapters in this work. Had it been marked 
only by ordinary events, the writer would never have 
undertaken the task of reviewing it. But, as it has 
been one of the most extraordinary in its acts and policy 
which has characterized the annals of our country, and 
as "history is philosophy teaching by experience," a 
true analysis and exposition of the principal acts of the 
administration have been deemed of paramount import- 
ance, not only for the instruction and benefit of the 
present generation, but for statesmen and the rising 
generation who may come after us. 

The political friends of the administration will do 
injustice if they ascribe the motives of the writer to 
personal interest, or prejudice, or to any feelings of 
partisan zeal. The acts of the administration speak 
for themselves ; they are written in capitals broad as 
the republic, and conspicuous as the sun in the firma- 
ment ; — they tell their own tale ! 

Some may think that it is not the province of a 
woman to enter on the rough path of a political critic, , 
or to presume to discuss subjects which belong to the 
other sex. The writer's answer to all remarks of this 
nature is, that she knows of no rule to exclude females 
from society, or the discussion of any subject which has 
an immediate bearing on the social, moral, and political 
destiny of this nation ; — that the interests and destiny 



IV PREFACE. 

of mothers and daughters are common with those of 
their fathers and brothers ; — that an American female 
is not an idle statue of a pagoda, or of a Turkish se- 
raglio ; — that if the apothegm of our orators is true, that 
it is the " mothers who make the men in a nation/' then 
daughters and mothers should not be ignorant on sub- 
jects which relate to the manly development of the 
mind, and the moulding of the rising generation ; — 
that, while every well-cultivated female knows when 
she is within the province or without the bounds of 
feminine delicacy, there need be no fear that she will 
trespass either on the rights of the male sex, or wan- 
tonly expose herself to the charge of temerity. Truth 
is what concerns mankind ; and from whatever lips or 
pen it may proceed, it should be welcomed by the re- 
ceiver, and especially when its aim is for the welfare and 
highest good of individuals, of society, and of the nation. 

The chapters on the administration in this book are 
not written for a temporary purpose, to serve the grat- 
ification or interest of the reader for a passing hour. 
They are subjects for all periods, having a permanent 
bearing, being of the highest interest to this nation, 
and to every man, woman, and child, within the limits 
of this republic. 

If the author knows her own heart, she feels an 
anxious desire to benefit her country. And, with a love 
for it which is irrepressible, her earnest desire is to 
awaken the attention of the reader to the vast im- 
portance of the various subjects upon which this vol- 
ume treats. With her fervent prayers that this may 
be the result, she commends it and them to the bless- 
ing of Heaven. 

New York, 1856. 



R E YI E W. 



Lamartine, in his history of the '' Girondists," 
gives the thrilling incident of the tombs of the 
French kings, despoiled by the populace at St. 
Denis, who scattered their ashes and monuments 
. to the winds. And the winds gave signs of a vir- 
tuous national feeling, as they moaned and sighed 
over the desecration of the dead. 

We are not now going to invade the mausoleum 
of our illustrious dead, to look at their vast fame, 
their sublime self-denial, or their firm patriotism ; 
but rapidly, as preliminary, to recur to the several 
administrations of the American government, from 
the days of Washington to those of Fillmore, be- 
fore w^e introduce that of the present executive, of 
Franklin Pierce ! 

General Washington was inaugurated President 

of this Union the 30th of April, 1789. The great 
2# 



b REVIEW. 

and powerful opxDOsition to the Constitution in 
several of the States then caused Congress to 
adopt sixteen amendments ; and ten of these 
were approved by the Legislatures of the several 
States, in September of that year, and became 
part of the Constitution in 1791. Two other ar- 
ticles, adopted by the States, were made by sub- 
sequent Congresses, in 1794 and 1803, and also 
became part of the Constitution. 

The subjects of commerce and finance early en- 
grossed the attention of the first Congress, under 
Washington's administration ; and six months 
were required to frame the laws by which the 
government was to be administered. 

The power of appointment to and removal from 
office was strongly debated ; and, the Constitution 
being silent on removals, it was decided to be in 
the p^wer of the President. The Cabinet of Wash- 
ington was not selected until September, 1789, 
four months after he was inaugurated. The office 
of Secretary of the Navy was established subse- 
quently, under Mr. Adams, in 1798. 

An opposition to the administration of Wash- 
ington was organized soon after he came to the 
presidency. His opponents were chiefly those who 



REVIEW. 7 

had opposed the Constitution, and called them- 
selves Republicans ; while the friends of the 
administration retained the name of Federalists. 

Hamilton and Knox sympathized with Wash- 
ington. Jefferson and Randolph opposed his ad- 
ministration. These four gentlemen composed his 
Cabinet. 

The last years of the first term of Washington's 
government were intensely exciting. He and his 
adherents were in favor of preserving friendly re- 
lations with Great Britain ; while Mr. Jefferson 
and the opposition declared sympathy for France. 

In this condition of affairs, weak and feeble, 
yet divided and distracted, nothing but the almost 
superhuman strength and wisdom of Washington 
saved the Union from destruction. 

At this crisis of public distrust, the leaders of 
both parties acted as patriots, and, rising above 
the excitement of party, insisted upon the reelec- 
tion of Washington ; while the people unanimous- 
ly affirmed the wisdom of this decision, through 
the ballot-box. 

It was only on the Vice-President, then, that 
party feeling was exhibited ; and Mr. Adams, 
the federal constitutional candidate, was elected 



8 REVIEW. 

by twenty-seven majority over Governor Clinton, 
who carried New York for the republicans, and 
received fifty electoral votes. Aaron Burr, the 
third candidate, received four votes. 

Mr. Adams then had the support of all the 
Northern States, except New York ; and South 
Carolina was the only state south of Maryland 
that voted for him. 

In 1793, the second term of Washington's ad- 
ministration. Congress met in Philadelphia. The 
House elected a Speaker from the opposition. Jef- 
ferson resigned, as Secretary of State, the begin- 
ning of that term ; and Washington, having by 
experiment seen the effect of a mixed Cabinet, 
now selected one which agreed with him in the 
policy of administering the government. 

It is a singular fact, that all the representatives 
in Congress from Virginia opposed Washington's 
administration, except one or two members early 
in his first term. 

Washington and his Cabinet agreed, in his sec- 
ond term, that this country had no right to take 
part with France in her war against England ; 
and in April, 1793, issued the celebrated pro- 
clamation of neutrality, which has ever since 



REVIEW. 9 

been the policy of this government with foreign 
powers. 

To give motion and effect to the Union was the 
great mission of Washington. He had never stud- 
ied a profession, — had not even begun the study 
of the classics. But for fifteen years before the 
Revolution he had been in the Legislature of 
Virginia, where he exercised his influence by 
soundness of judgment and readiness to act. He 
was never known to speak longer than ten min- 
utes in any deliberative body ; and in the con- 
vention which formed the Constitution he spoke 
but twice — once on taking the presidency, and 
again near the close, when he asked consent to 
change the ratio of representation in Congress. 
He communicated to Congress verbally, and not 
by written messages, as all the Presidents have 
done from the time of Mr. Madison. In the dis- 
cretionary power of the executive, Washington' 
was wise and just. He never displaced any man 
for opinion, not even under the great party ex- 
citement about sympathy for France. Yet he 
preferred to give office to revolutionary patriots, 
because he knew them to be true Americans, and 
had tried them. 



10 REVIEW. 

While in the presidential office, public and 
private credit was restored to the country ; all 
disputes between us and foreign nations were 
adjusted, except those with France ; and the pros- 
perity of the Union had arisen to remarkable emi- 
nence, notwithstanding all hostile opposition. 

He adhered tenaciously to his foreign policy, 
and finally overcame the popular clamor for France 
against England. His example stands replete with 
wisdom and devotion to the whole Union, and 
challenges the admiration of all parties to-day. 
His magnanimity, forbearance, his personal dig- 
nity, his construction of the Constitution, his sa- 
cred regard for it, his communications to Congress, 
and recommendations in regard to the Judiciary, 
Indian tribes, finance, the mint, as well as his 
demeanor to all the ministers and ojQ&cers of the 
government, make him a model for all to imitate, 
who shall occupy his ofiicial position, or subscribe 
to the constitutional American principles which 
he inculcated and enforced. 

The policy of Mr. Adams' administration was, 
at first, regarded as identical with that of Wash- 
ington^'s. But the political acts of Mr. Adams 
rendered him very soon unpopular with the feder- 



REVIEW. 



11 



alists, though they were stronger in Congress 
than under Washington. 

Mr. Adams quarrelled with his cabinet, and 
dismissed Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State, and 
Mr. McIIenry, Secretary of War, from office. In 
May, 1800, he appointed John Marshall, of Vir- 
ginia, Secretary of State, and Samuel Dexter, of 
Massachusetts, Secretary of War. Benjamin Stod- 
dard, of Maryland, in 1798, went into his cabinet, 
as first Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Adams's 
administration was renowned for party strife ; for 
the dispute between France and the United States, 
which he settled against the federal policy ; for the 
organization of the navy ; for the passage of the 
alien and sedition laws, and for causing the down- 
fall of his party at the end of four years. 

In 1800, the seat of government was removed 
to Washington, and Mr. Adams made his last 
annual speech in the new capitol. 

Mr. Jefferson's administration, from 1801 to 
1809, was distinguished by the acquisition of 
Louisiana, the surveys of the coast, the exploring 
expedition of Lewis and Clark across the continent, 
advantageous Indian treaties, the embargo and 
other restrictions on commerce, the trial of the 



12 REVIEW. 

gun-boat system, the reduction of the navy, and 
successful hostilities with the Barbary powers in 
the Mediterranean. 

Mr. Jeiferson was sustained, throughout his 
administration, by Congress. He removed and 
appointed at pleasure ; displacing always federal- 
ists for republicans. 

The leading measure of Mr. Madison's adminis- 
tration was war with England, which made our 
present nationality, established a system of finance, 
including a National Bank, revised the tariff on 
imports, and provided for paying the national 
debt. He made wise recommendations to Congress 
for the true interests of the country, and was 
uniformly sustained by the republican majority in 
both houses. Mr. Madison revived the custom 
of stated public levees at the White House, which 
had been abolished by Mr. Jefferson. 

Mr. Monroe's administration was styled the 
" era of good feeling." Party acerbity had died 
out, and the people were absorbed in public pros- 
perity. Florida was acquired by treaty with Spain 
under his administration ; the independence of the 
South American States recognized ; the national 
debt was reduced, and the revenues increased. 



REVIEW. 13 

When John Quincy Adams came into power, in 
1825, party spirit again arose more fiercely than 
ever before, and the opposition concentrated upon 
General Jackson. Mr. Adams was sustained 
eighteen months in Congress by a majority ; after 
that, the opposition were in the ascendant, in both 
branches. The peace of the country, however, 
was not interrupted ; commerce flourished, and 
foreign and domestic matters were well conducted. 
The attempt to get free trade with the British 
West Indies failed ; but the resources of the coun- 
try were developed by his policy, internal improve- 
ments advanced, and the tariff was revived. Thirty 
millions of the public debt were paid ; five millions 
were appropriated to pension officers of the Revolu- 
tion. Fourteen millions were expended beside, to 
benefit the country. Mr. Adams made but few 
removals from office, which, however beneficial to 
the public interest, contributed to his defeat. 

General Jackson's administration followed, and 
will ever be one of deep interest to the people, and 
of mark upon the age. 

Under his administration, the national debt was 
extinguished, the people returned to specie cur- 
rency. 

2 



14 EEVIEW. 

He refused to sanction a re-charter of the United 
States Bank, and removed the public deposits from 
its vaults, which effected its destruction. He 
vetoed Mr. Clay's Land Bill, and other internal 
improvement hills. General Jackson's friends 
claim that he arrested extravagant speculations, 
but they have failed to furnish the proof. 

Mr. Van Buren's administration carried out 
General Jackson's views of the Sub -Treasury, 
and continued his cabinet in office. 

He made but few changes and appointments. 
His administration was supported by a majority in 
the Senate, but was sometimes in a minority in 
the lower House of Congress. Under his adminis- 
tration, in 1837, one thousand financiers, mer- 
chants, manufacturers, ship-owners, broke down in 
New York, in less than three weeks, and forty 
thousand more throughout the country. Failures 
were thus caused to the amount of five hundred 
millions ! and involved the banks and the States 
themselves for several following years. 

In this great reversion of trade and finance, the 
social calamity of the country was unparalleled. 
The wealthy fell to penury. Widows and orphans, 
left with a competency, were driven to want. 



REVIEW. 15 

Honest working men, who supported their wives 
and children upon their daily wages, were thrown 
out of employment. The savings of years were 
swept off at a blow, and the prospects of many 
were ruined forever. 

Americans, you will reasonably inquire. What 
caused this financial, commercial and social revo- 
lution ? 

It was the mercenary spirit of Van Buren's 
administration, which had, for years before, infused 
its poison over the entire country. It was Van 
Buren's administration which made the first over- 
tures to the political Roman Catholic Church. It 
was the shameful recklessness of his partisans to 
procure votes which caused the public plunder 
under his administration, and became paramount 
to commerce, finance, manufactures, justice and 
honor. William L. Marcy was the leader then, 
whose cardinal creed has been to plunder the 
public treasure, when in power. 

John Tyler's administration was noted for vetoes 
of National Bank bills, and other measures on 
which General Harrison had been elected Presi- 
dent. Through the energy and ability of Mr. 
Webster the North-Eastern Boundary question 



16 REVIEW. 

was amicably adjusted with England. Texas was 
annexed by Congress, and its final admission into 
the Union as ^ State was the last act of his ad- 
ministration. A revision of the tariff occurred at 
that period ; and the Whig majority in Congress, 
with which he went into office, was superseded by 
large Democratic majorities, the last two years of 
his administration. 

James K. Polk's epoch was marked by the war 
with Mexico, and the consequent annexation of 
California and New Mexico, the settlement of the 
Oregon question with the English government^ the 
establishment of a Sub-Treasury, a revision of the 
tariff on imports, with ad valore^n duties, a ware- | 
house policy, and also the Department of the Inte- 
rior was created. Mr. Polk's Democratic majority 
in the first Congress under his administration, 
yielded to a small Whig majority in the last two 
years of his administration. 

Millard Fillmore came into office upon the death 
of President Taylor, in the summer of 1850. The 
Compromise measures were then passed, and the 
slavery agitation checked. California was admit- 
ted as a State. The Texas boundary was settled. 
Public confidence was restored. Commerce pros- 



REVIEW. 17 

pered ; peace prevailed ; and his administration 
spread universal contentment among all classes of 
the people. No internal dissensions agitated the 
public mind. A large surplus was idle in the treas- 
ury, and his administration shed untarnished lustre 
over the whole country. Under these brilliant 
national advantages, Mr. Fillmore left the presiden- 
tial office, followed by the respect, confidence, and 
gratitude of the American people, who had reason 
to bless the providence of God, which interposed for 
their deliverance, in making him President. 

Mr. Fillmore came into poAver with both houses 
of Congress in the opposition, and calmly and 
steadily held the helm of the government, unaided 
by that prestige. 

And now, Americans, in taking this hasty but 
authentic survey of the several administrations of 
the general government, you cannot but remark 
how much the character of the man has to do with 
that of his administration. 

Take the social, moral, intellectual, and politi- 
cal character of Washington, as he entered upon 
the government ; dwell upon the actions of his 
administration ; compare its results and bearings, 
while he looked abroad, to the protection of all the 

9* 



I 



18 REVIEW. 

interests and rights of the people. Follow on 
successively to Fillmore, and judge who possesses 
more suitable qualifications, more personal integ- 
rity, higher sense of national honor and patriotism, 
to fill the elevated office, after "Washington, of the 
chief magistrate of the nation. The name of Fill- 
more will adorn the page of our American history, 
and be transmitted to posterity as one of the most 
successful and illustrious successors of Washington. 
On the 4th of March, 1853, when Franklin 
Pierce assumed the government of these United 
States, the whole world was at peace. England, 
France, Austria, and Prussia, were quiet. Hun- 
gary had been split in pieces, and was prostrate. 
Italy was lying unresistingly at the feet of the 
papal throne. Nicholas was studying the expan- 
siveness of Anglo-American liberty ; and nothing 
remained to remind Europe of the convulsions of 
'48 and '9 but some pending negotiations between 
the Sultan of Turkey and the Czar. In Asia there 
was the same still monotony. In Africa, Liberia 
was flourishing under practical Christian benevo- 
lence ; though England had demonstrated her 
hypocrisy by assaulting Algiers, silencing Egypt 
and Morocco, and leaving the Cape of Good Hope 



REVIEW. 19 

to an intestine war. In 1852, Franklin Pierce 
received the nomination of the Democratic Balti- 
more Convention, and stood erect upon the middle 
plank of that platform as its Union candidate ! 

He had zealously labored to obtain the nomina- 
tion, and, in a contest for the selection among so 
many leaders of that party, his friends had long 
cherished the idea that there was hope of the ob- 
scure New Hampshire candidate, upon the princi- 
ple of compromise and the Union. Twenty dele- 
gates in all had, by stratagem, been secured for 
Pierce in that Convention, as a reserved corps; 
and for days before it convened in Baltimore, out- 
side influences were zealously engaged in the at- 
tempt to swell that number. 

In the mean while Mr. Pierce was at home, pre- 
paring to '' surprise " himself by writing a letter, 
declaring, in the face of the fact, as his friends 
knew, that he was not before the Convention. 

Believing he was honest in his love for the Union, 
twenty-seven states voted for him. And the people 
rendered a verdict in favor of Democracy unparal- 
leled since the days of Mr. Monroe ; giving Frank- 
lin Pierce 254 electoral votes out of the 296 which 
were then cast for the Presidency ! 



20 REVIEW. 

Never, since the Declaration of Independence, 
had the Union numbered 'so many adherents ; and 
even the opponents of Mr. Pierce acquiesced, on 
the ground that it was a glorious decision of the 
American people, not for Franklin Pierce, hut for 
the Union and the compromise upon which he had 
been elected. They had nailed our flag to the 
mast of liberty, and it floated gracefully in the 
national breeze. On the 4th of March, 1853, Mr. 
Pierce assumed the official duties of Chief Magis- 
trate of the United States. The people honestly 
believed that it was their sovereign voice that had 
called him to that post. But Mr. Pierce, who 
knew more of the particulars of his own nomina- 
tion and election, and the fraud which had secured 
both, attributed his success mainly to the foreign 
vote of the Roman Catholic Church, for which he 
had most unscrupulously sold himself to secure his 
election. For this purpose, he received the aid of 
his adroit friend, Hon. James Buchanan, of Penn- 
sylvania, who made the bargain with the foreign 
hierarchy, and is now the so-called Democratic 
candidate for the succession. 

When Mr. Pierce was called upon by the Chief 
Justice to swear '' to preserve, protect, and defend 



REVIEW. 21 

the Constitution," it is said he discarded the time- 
honored fashion of all our former Presidents, and 
said, '' I solemnly affirm ; " and instead of rever- 
ently kissing the Blessed Word, as all his prede- 
cessors had done, he merely raised his right hand 
and held it aloft, in the presence of the spectators, 
until the pledge was given. Thus his first act was 
an obsequiousness to the Romish hierarchy, to 
propitiate which he insulted the feelings of 
Protestants, who regard as sacred God's eternal 
Book. 

But the nation was jubilant with joy. His 
inaugural was filled to overflowing with love for 
the Union. lie announced that every citizen 
should be protected, from one end of it to the other ; 
that on every sea and on every soil where our 
enterprise might rightfully carry the American 
flag, there American citizenship should be an invio- 
lable pledge for the security of American rights. 
He pledged himself to the doctrine that while 
national expansion was inherent to our existence 
as a nation, it was only to be accomplished in 
accordance with good faith and national honor ; 
and was, therefore, opposed to any unlawful attempt 
to seize Cuba by force, however desirable its acqui- 



22 REVIEW. 

sition. He declared, as a fundamental principle, 
that American rights rejected all foreign coloniza- 
tion on this side of the Atlantic. He spoke of the 
army and navy, and of the great reserve of the 
national militia, as sacredly to be cherished. He 
declared that integrity and rigid economy should 
he the watchwords in all the departments of the 
government ; that the offices of the country should 
be considered solely in reference to the duty to be 
performed ; that good citizens who filled them 
might expect, and should claim, the benefit of his 
government ; that he had no implied engagements 
to ratify, no resentments to remember, no personal 
wishes to consult, in his selections for office ; and 
therefore the people must not recognize any claim 
to office for having voted for him ! He announced 
two great principles of constitutional doctrine, on 
the rights of the states separately, and their com- 
mon rights under the Constitution. He declared 
it the duty of each one of the states to respect the 
rights of every one of the states, and citizens 
thereof, and the obligations of the general govern- 
ment to protect these. He affirmed it as his solemn 
creed, and with an air of assumed energy and bold- 
ness, that involuntary servitude, as it existed in 



REVIEW. 23 

different sections of the Union, was an admitted 
constitutional right ; and that the Compromise 
laws were to be kept inviolate in the spirit of 
national fraternity between the North and the 
South. He declared this to be the test of loyalty 
to the American Union. In a word, Pierce entered 
the presidency pledged to principles on which the 
Union was founded ; pledged to the compromises 
of the constitution ; pledged to protect American 
citizens in all their rights and privileges ; pledged 
to go for an extension of our republic only when 
it could be done in an honorable way, and at a 
proper time ; pledged to retrenchment and reform 
in all the departments of the government ; pledged 
to protect all the governmental officials who were 
faithful to the duties of their office, without regard 
to party considerations. But, in spite of all these 
promises of the inaugural, our republic, the great 
safeguard of democratic freedom, soon felt the 
pressure of faithless fratricidal hands. The Union 
again became the common battle-ground. The 
altar fires were kindled by agitation and civil dis- 
cord. The canker at the root of our domestic 
peace became the curse to array man against man, 
state against state, the North against the South ! 



24 REVIEW. 

And the people soon saw that Gesler, or one of 
the Tarqnins, would have been as well suited to 
head the American army in the place of Washing- 
ton, as was Franklin Pierce to administer this 
government in the spirit of his supposed love of 
the Union, and on which alone, regardless of his 
want of natural or adventitious greatness, he had 
been elected to office. 

His Cabinet, instead of judicious advisers, be- 
came his abettors in evil. The people tried to for- 
get the antecedents of the members of his Cabinet, 
which seemed at once to portend disaster, and they 
silently acquiesced, without a murmur from their 
devoted lips. The press, which had been the great 
instrument of bringing the administration into 
power, still insisted, after it had been chosen, that 
Pierce was not the man ' ' to keep the promise to 
the ear, and break it to the hope." At the North 
and the South, collectors, mail-agents, and the post- 
of&cers, disunion men were invariably selected; 
and the anti- American principle was soon apparent 
in government patronage at home and abroad. He 
sent Gadsden, of South Carolina, — who had advo- 
cated the dissolution of the Union, — as Minister 
to Mexico. He removed Grayson, of Carolina, 



REVIEW. 25 

who went for it, and put Colcock in his place, who 
had counselled taking arms against the general 
government. He gave the consulship of Havana 
to Clayton, of 'Mississippi, who was defeated before 
the people because he went for disunion. He sent 
Trousdale, of Tennessee, to Brazil, who had been 
defeated before the people on the same issue. He 
gave Borland, who opposed the compromise, the 
mission to Central America. He sent Soule, a 
French Jacobin, and a disunionist, to Spain ; and 
sent men to Denmark and Sardinia holding the 
same sentiments. 

When Americans remember that it was from the 
rejection of Mr. Slidell, as Minister to Mexico, 
pending the Texas annexation, that the Mexican 
war arose, they can judge with what expectations 
Mr. Soule went to Spain. AJillibustero, with fif- 
teen millions, and war for Cuba ! 

Mr. Belmont, another foreigner, an agent for 
the Rothschilds, was sent to represent our govern- 
ment at the Hague. He was a successful financier 
in Wall-street, New York. And it has never been 
denied that he gave a large amount of money to 
elect Pierce, with the stipulation that he should 
have his present place to give the Rothschilds 
3 



26 REVIEW. 

certain political influence in American affairs. 
Belmont was ex-consul for Austria ; and when 
Mr. Webster drove off Hulseman, that inveterate 
foe to our institutions, this foreign minister left 
Belmont in charge of his ofi&cial duties, to act for 
him. It is a well-established fact that Austria 
takes the lead in Europe in conspiring against 
American liberty, in connection with the Komish 
hierarchy. Thus, without a single sympathy with 
democratic republican freedom, we are nominally 
represented by a foreign aristocrat. Mr. Eobert 
Dale Owen, at Naples, a socialist from Indiana, 
who conducted a paper in connection with that 
infidel virago, Fanny Wright, was sent to the 
court of Naples. 

The talent of the country was largely at the 
command of Mr. Pierce. He needed men, Ameri- 
can patriots, to protect the republican principle 
abroad, more than ever before ; men, to protect 
our citizens, and to see that their interests and 
their rights were duly regarded, and our commer- 
cial and political advantages secured. 

Louis Napoleon was knoAvn to be watching and 
plotting against us. He had practised iniquitous 
exactions on American vessels, put enormous duties 



REVIEW. 27 

on American produce, and excluded Americans from 
the shores of France, while we were encouraging 
Frenchmen to come to our own. Under these cir- 
cumstances we needed a chief magistrate who had 
energy and spirit to look into these matters, — one 
who would insist on the reduction of tonnage, cus- 
tom-house duties, and produce rates which corres- 
pond with those put upon their subjects by us ; 
and in all our foreign embassies we required repre- 
sentatives of the first respectability for talent, moral 
character, and intelligence, who would transmit 
correct information on all subjects which concerned 
the nation, that it might understand whether the 
difPerence was for or against Americans, — in short, 
that it might understand how America, in every 
aspect, stands ahead, by the facts and statistics. 

It was not until late in July following the 
advent of Mr. Pierce, that a single appointed diplo- 
mat left our shores ; the government all the 
while paying two sets of representatives. Kossuth, 
even, assails the administration for this, and calls 
it '' a degradation of national dignity, bordering 
upon the ridicule, if not the contempt, of the civil- 
ized world." For six months the ''spoils" en- 
grossed the entire attention of the administration. 



28 REVIEW. 

Mr. Pierce was determined to eject from office 
every opponent of his policy — to allow no liberty 
of political opinion contrary to his own. He 
gleaned the states of every vestige of opposition in 
those dependent on him, in order to gratify his 
selfish mind. Not a fifty-dollar office under the 
government escaped his vigilant eye. 

Mr. Campbell, the Postmaster General, had 
been a candidate for judgeship, under the first 
election for that office, by the people in Pennsyl- 
vania. The bar of Philadelphia, city and county, 
knew him well, and they came out, over their 
own signatures, and declared his unfitness. But 
Mr. Buchanan had bargained with the Komish 
^ hierarchy to make this man a member of the 
Cabinet, on which condition the Jesuits had prom- 
ised to make him successor to Pierce ; and hence 
all the true and good men of Pennsylvania were 
set aside to make way for this Jesuit to fill the high 
and responsible office of Postmaster General. When 
the Democrats of Pennsylvania heard it, they 
addressed a letter to Pierce, and earnestly remon- 
strated ; but he had been guided by Buchanan's 
dictation ; the Pope had signified acceptance of 
his appointment ; and not the united voice of the 



REVIEW. 29 

Democracy in all the States, or Mr. Pierce's wish 
to the contrary, could then have prevented it. In 
spite of his incompetency, Campbell was appointed 
by Mr. Pierce to satisfy the Eoman Catholic 
Church. The political value of every post-office in 
this country was then sought out, and laid before 
Campbell, by his agents, who were sent into the 
states when the office was too obscure to bring 
the applicant to Washington. To be opposed to 
the American creed, and to act out Popish big- 
otry, have been the cardinal principles on which 
he started into of&ce ; thus establishing a system 
of espionage upon all the mailable matter of the 
American people, in exact conformity with the 
established usage of the Roman Catholic countries 
of Europe. 

In the custom-houses, weighers, gangers, tide- 
waiters, messengers, and watchmen, were required 
to be true to Mr. Pierce, and were removed for 
loyalty to the Union and the American policy. 
The New York collector w^as addressed by official 
letter, from the Secretary of the Treasury, interfer- 
ing with the •politics of that state, and requiring 
him to provide for the especial friends of the 
administration. This called forth popular indig- 

O-ifc 



30 REVIEW. 

nation over the land. And Mr. Bronson, acting 
out the independence of an American, was dis- 
placed from office. This same financier, at the 
head of the Treasury, declared that ' ' no man 
stood, at that day, so high before the American 
people as Mr. Pierce, save and except one, the 
immortal Washington !'' This sycophancy was a 
subject of perfect ridicule to the American people. 
The energy and enterprise of our merchants 
have built up foreign commerce. They have 
augmented our imports and exports, and opened 
new channels of communication for our benefit. 
They are best fitted for the revenue and postal 
service of the country, but they have been always 
overlooked, under this administration, for politi- 
cians without standing or eminence. The diplo- 
matists abroad have been, and are, under this 
administration, men generally of this class, both 
ministers and consulates. The latter, except at 
Liverpool and Havana and a few other places, are 
so inadequately paid by fees, that their time is 
given to private enterprise and speculation for 
personal advantage, while the commerce of the 
country is almost totally neglected. Italians, 
Irish, Germans, Frenchmen, have been largelv 



REVIEW. 31 

'bA^iiefited by this class of appointments, under Mr. 
Pierce, to the detriment of the country. Small 
men, everywhere, were put into office ; men wdio 
*' spat upon the platform," like the President, and 
yet called it the gospel of their political faith. 

In less than twenty days after Mr. Pierce went 
into office, he was declared the vacillating tool of 
his Cabinet, who governed instead of advised, 
directed instead of consulted him. On the 30th 
of November, nine months after he swore, before 
Ood and his country, to sustain the compromise 
measures of 1850, wdiich gave immortality to Clay, 
Calhoun, and Webster, he publicly ignored them, 
through the columns of the '' Union,'' his organ at 
Washington ; and declared that the course of this 
government would not bo in accordance with the 
'^ laws of adjustment" of 1850 ! That compact 
which had been, in the judgment of the country, 
above party, above intrigue, above political bar- 
gaining, and solemnly held sacred, had been ridi- 
culed, despjsed, and set aside, and the flood-gates 
of turmoil and political contention opened again 
all over the land ! What contrition, what confes- 
sion, what penance, can cover this iniquity and 
wipe out this foul stigma of Franklin Pierce ? He 



32 REVIEW. 

gave our secrets to our enemies, and then parted 
with our national honor ! This is a deep and burn- 
ing shame ! Contemning the moral sentiments of 
the country by which he was elevated, he thus 
counteracted all the fruits of Mr. Clay's patriotism, 
and that of his associates in 1850. And all 
moral obligation of the government being now 
repudiated, it had no other acknoAvledged principle 
than that of public plunder. 

Before the next meeting of Congress an article 
appeared in Mr. Pierce's organ, which threatened 
the action of the Senate on his appointments ; and 
declared to the senators that except a vote for 
rejection was given on valid, sound, and tenable 
grounds, ''■they should have reason for personal 
and political regret forever.'' For the first time in 
our national history were senators of Congress 
ever menaced by a President ! Louis Napoleon 
of France, nor Victoria of England, could dare to 
do so much ! It was not enough to interfere with 
the local politics of the free states through his 
cabinet, nor to remove every postmaster who 
loved the Union ; but by a complicity between 
the President and his Union organ, he defies and 
threatens the very men whom the constitution 



REVIEW. - 33 

empowers to pass sentence on his acts, and without 
whose concurrence the most of these acts would be 
nullities. It had a degree of absolutism which be- 
longed only to the Bey of Tunis, or the Roman 
hierarchy; for nothing like it ever before eman- 
ated from an American President, or an independ- 
ent press. 

Congress met in December, 1853, with very 
large democratic majorities in both houses, reach- 
ing one hundred in the House of Representatives. 
The Clerk was, therefore, selected to suit the Presi- 
dent's choice. The outside influence was unusu- 
ally great, and the contingent fees of several hun- 
dred thousand dollars at the discretion of the Clerk 
was at least a circumstance, at that period. 

The Doge of Venice, by custom, marries that 
city to the sea ; but the sea rolls as free as before. 
So the people wdio had cast their votes for Pierce 
were not to be bound by the ceremony of the act 
of his election, and they no longer felt it an obli- 
gation to support his administration. They saw 
he had got in on a false issue ; that he was an em- 
bodied falsehood, and nothing more. Proof was 
now adduced which fixed another item of fact in 
Mr. Pierce's history, viz., that he had sympathize 



34 REVIEW. 

with the election of Martin Van Buren, in 1848, 
instead of General Cass, the nominee of the party 
to which he professed attachment. — That he did 
write a letter in reply to an invitation to attend a 
convention of Yan Baren's friends, in New York, 
favorable to his election, which Avas in the hands 
of an office-holder, and was known to the public 
as the scarlet letter, on account of its treachery. — 
That the parties, being in office under Mr. Pierce, 
were delicately situated, and, while they confessed 
to the fact, did not expose it. — And that, not one 
only, but various letters were acknowledged to 
exist of the same import; while the ''Patriot," 
Mr. Pierce's organ in New Hampshire, and known 
to reflect his sentiments, had steadily opposed the 
Compromise, until it was about to be made the law 
of the land. 

The whole course of Mr. Pierce was an open 
and full confession that he had not the moral 
honesty or the physical courage to stand to the 
principles on which he was elected. 

At a time when, to prevent the absorption of 
Turkey by Russia, we needed a man of power to 
speak the sentiments of the United States, and to 
establish a new Christian power at Constantinople, 



REVIEW. 35 

a third-rate Baltimore lawyer was sent to represent 
our government. At China, too, we wanted men 
familiar with the detail of trade, and possessing 
an intimate knowledge of the condition of things 
on the Pacific. But, while we needed a repre- 
sentative man, one of similar grade was sent there. 

Circulars regulating the dress of our foreign 
ambassadors seemed more to engross the adminis- 
tration than matters affecting the great interests of 
the country. Buchanan and Sandford alone followed 
the orders of the Secretary of State ; and, it being 
a novel circular, it attracted some attention. 

The Senate committee on foreign relations de- 
sired to know what directions were given to 
diplomatists about getting admission in the costume 
of Franklin. In answer to Mr. Mason, the chair- 
man of the Senate committee, Marcy proposed a 
repeal of the costume order, and counselled a 
"masterly inactivity." 

In the face of all the gold from California and 
Australia, the credit of the country was soon forced 
by the administration beyond its natural bounds ; 
and the same havoc as that which occurred under 
Van Buren, in 1837, when the government was 
plundered by officers of millions, in the name of 



36 REVIEW. 

the States, was seen to be approaching. The 
Secretary of the Treasury bought up securities 
with bonds of the government, which had fifteen 
years to run, and sliipped the specie to Europe in 
payment of evidences of debt in that quarter, 
when there was not the slightest necessity, thus 
fixing an enormous amount as the price by which 
government bonds shoukl be redeemed. Paper 
circulation increased beyond that under Van Bu- 
ren, in 1837. All sorts of credit expanded. Im- 
ports were swelled from thirty to fifty millions. 
And by the mismanagement of the surplus reve- 
nues of the government, in connection with the 
abstraction of specie to send to Europe, came the 
terrible crash to credit, commerce, and manufac- 
tures, in 1854 and 1855, when so many honest 
operatives, men and women, were starving in the 
streets, and compelled to accept public charity. 

In the mean while, sectional agitations were 
within, and foreign relations threatened without. 

The administration, instead of advocating the 
use of money from the treasury, recommended land 
grants, and this has caused such plunder and spoil, 
such plucking and snapping up of the public lands. 

The Gadsden Treaty with Mexico caused the 



REVIEW. 37 

outlay of twenty millions, which exclacled us from 
the rich silver mines of Chihuahua, and served no 
better purpose than to set up Santa Anna in Mex- 
ican style. 

The distribution of the spoils, the appointments 
of partisans, and the interference in the local 
politics of the States to defeat the free will of the 
people, had rendered Pierce's administration odi- 
ous, and surprised even its worst enemies by its 
enormities, when the Koszta letter of Marcy was 
written to make a show of its adherence to Ameri- 
can nationality. This act of vindication was done 
after Koszta had been released by Capt. Ingraham, 
aided and supported by Mr. Brown. But the best 
evidence of sincerity in this declaration was fur- 
nished four weeks subsequent to that letter, when 
three American citizens, Wm. Freelum, Wm. At- 
kins, and Harvey C. Parks, sailors, were confined 
in prison at Havana. These three men sailed from 
New York, in the bark Jasper, on a trading 
voyage to Sierra Leone. The ship was diverted 
from its proper channel of trade without the agen- 
cy of these poor sailors ; and, to escape British 
cruisers, she was finally burnt to the water's edge. 
These three men, in landing for supplies, were put 
4 



38 REVIEW. 

on a Spanisli war schooner, Habanero, and taken to 
Havana and lodged in Punta prison. The case 
was laid before the government at Washington in 
July, 1853. One was an Irishman, another a 
Scotchman, the other an American, but all citizens 
of the United States. But they were only sailors, 
and could exert no influence for Mr. Pierce's 
government ; and, so far from acting on their case, 
the administration did not even inquire into the 
matter ! And this is Mr. Pierce's inaugural pro- 
tection ! 

Capt. Gibson was also treated shamefully at 
Sumatra by the Dutch. He asked redress of the 
national government in vain. " Is he worth pro- 
tecting?" is and has been the rule of action. 
When the press made this apparent in Gibson's 
case, and not before, he received some considera- 
tion in his behalf. Again, there was Frederick 
Wiechee, a Saxon, who came to the United States 
in 1851, remained some time, and returned tempo- 
rarily to Leipsic, in Germany, where he suffered 
imprisonment, but finally escaped. The case was 
exactly parallel with that of Koszta ; yet the 
administration, who professed a will to protect the 
one, refused to interfere with the other. Williams 



REVIEW. 39 

and Miller, American citizens, were defrauded and 
injured by the government of Granada, and Miller 
was imprisoned for claiming his just rights under 
that government. The matter was laid before the 
administration without eliciting any attention. 
All the above cases illustrate the value of the 
promise of protection in the Inaugural Address. 

In the summer of 1853, Bishop Hughes, a 
political Jesuit and demagogue, had the steamer 
Michigan placed at his disposal at Mackinaw, 
which actually conveyed this foreign Roman pre- 
late from place to place on business of the Romish 
hierarchy ; thus using a government vessel, at 
the government's expense, to gratify the arrogant 
vanity of this liege subject of the Pope of Rome ! 
It presented to the citizens and true patriots of 
America a most degrading example of the abject 
sycophancy to which a President of the United 
States would stoop to get the patronage of this 
intermeddling Jesuit, and, through him, the votes 
of the body of the Irish papists. A question arises 
here. Has the President a right to employ United 
States vessels, and the treasure of the country, for 
such personal and sinister purposes? No — it is 
an outrage on the rights of the people, and a gross 



40 REVIEW. 

insult to the nation. The same steamer, afterwards, 
was placed at the disposal of the Pope's Nuncio, 
Bedini, who travelled with Bishop Hughes. He 
came with congratulatory letters to Pierce from the 
Pope. 

The Pope sent Bedini, not to represent his 
government here, but to see to the church, and 
further its papal interests in the United States. 
To fasten on this nation of freemen its corrupt 
dogmas and despotism was the sole object of the 
Nuncio. Pierce did all in his power to facilitate 
that mission, and caused Captain Bigclow to dis- 
honor the American flag, by publicly escorting the 
Jesuit butcher who had condemned that noble 
patriot, Ugo Bassi, to be flayed alive and then 
shot, for no other crime than a sympathy for 
republican liberty in Italy. 

Early in January following the advent of Mr. 
Pierce, the ''Nebraska Bill," intended to repeal 
the great compromise effected chiefly by the efforts 
of the illustrious statesman, Henry Clay, in 1850, 
was concocted by Senator Stephen A. Douglas 
and Pierce, and reported to the Senate by the 
former. The whole country, which by the previ- 
ous adjustment of 1850 had settled down in peace, 



REVIEW. 41 

was suddenly taken by surprise. No one dreamed 
of the compromise being disturbed, and that the 
triumph of Mr. Clay, and the tranquillity happily 
secured by him over the country, were soon to come 
to an end. This measure, so suddenly sprung upon 
the country, aroused a feeling of the highest indig- 
nation. It opened anew the slavery discussion 
and agitation from one end of the country to the 
other. It sundered political affiliations, and broke 
the old established parties of Whig and Democrat 
into fragments. 

There were no Franklins, as at the adoption of 
the constitution, no Websters, Clays, or Calhouns, 
as in 1850, to calm the troubled waters. Pierce 
said, in his first message, in relation to the com- 
promise, that '' the repose secured to the country 
by acquiescence of distinguished citizens should 
receive no shock during his presidential term." 
Yet, the moment an undue sectional influence was 
exerted, and an opportunity presented to his per- 
sonal ambition, he trampled on the high and sacred 
pledge of his official station, and thus disappointed 
the just expectation of the people, by disturbing 
their tranquillity on a subject so absorbing and 

agitating as the repeal of the Missouri compromise. 
4* 



42 REVIEW. 

What added to the indignation of the country was 
the fact that Mr. Pierce changed his position 
from a national President to a narrow x^olitician, 
and abused the patronage of his office by creating 
discord both in and out of Congress ; in encourag- 
ing his intemperate partisans, and bringing for- 
ward men, North and South, who labored to pro- 
mote dissension. 

The magnitude of our national growth, our 
territorial expansion, our shipping, our foreign 
intercourse, had been checked and lowered by 
thrusting men into power who had discredited 
us abroad, and injured our social position, and our 
country, in the eyes of enlightened foreigners. 
Men, devoid of political honesty, who could do 
mean work for the party in their own State, were 
sure to succeed. Office-holders have been made 
to do slaves' labor under this dynasty. Taxed to 
support the party and carry the elections of the 
States, they Avere sent adrift, as soon as any party 
defection was discovered, although without busi- 
ness or calling, and unfitted to compete with pri- 
vate enterprise. It has been proved, by statistics, 
that more suffering and want have been experienced 
by those " crushed out " of official employment, by 



REVIEW. 



43 



Pierce, than under all the previous administrations 
of the government since it was adopted. 

When Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, he 
insisted that all contracts in a foreign land should 
be enforced by the United States Consuls, whether 
money, marriage, or business ; and required 
marriage to conform to the legal mode of the 
country in which it was celebrated. 
i The certificate of our Consul at Bremen in rela- 
tion to marriage v>^as made in conformity with the 
Senate of that country, and was the only expedi- 
ent the emigrant could adopt to meet the requisi- 
tions of the New York authorities. Without any 
investigation, the administration declared it good 
cause for removing the consul who had granted 
such certificates. This regulation was a judicious 
act of Mr. Fillmore's administration, to enforce vir- 
tue among the immigrant population who were 
thronging to our shores. 

In one year we find Mr. Pierce and his admin- 
istration condemned by the American people, with 
the exception of his particular adherents. lie 
had refused to protect American citizens abroad ; 
he had interfered with Cuba, by sending a for- 
eign red republican to the court of Madrid, who 



44 REVIEW. 

got into a duel about a coat, as of paramount 
importance to war ! He had appointed an Aus- 
trian aristocrat to represent us at the Hague ; 
and various other foreigners to personify our 
nationality before foreign powers, and declare this 
nation's mission ; besides scores of domestic poli- 
ticians, without character, learning, or manners. 
He had deliberately abjured the compromise laws, 
and declared that his government would not abide 
the work which Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and that 
host of worthies, in 1850, had wisely framed to 
give peace and permanence to the Union. He had 
threatened the Senate of the United States with 
his official vengeance if they dared to reject his 
appointments to ofiice. He had been proved to 
have been, five years before his election, an enemy 
to the political party which elected him, by sap- 
porting Van Buren in the place of General Cass, 
the nominee of the Democratic party. And he 
selected for office the three men who had constituted 
the committee, held in the city of New York, in 
1848, to aid the election of Martin Van Buren. 

He had made Yan Buren' s administration, called 
the '' Spoils Cabinet," the model for imitation ; 
having Yan Buren's old leader as Secretary of 



HEVIEW. 45 

state, to provide for his particular friends and 
dispute about the plunder. He imitated that 
'* Spoils Cabinet" in extravagant expenditures of 
the government, and in appointing an inexperi- 
enced financier as Secretary of the Treasury ; the 
effect of which was, the terrible crush to credit, 
commerce, and labor of the country, in '54 and '55. 
At a time when these and the social condition 
of the country were in peril, Mr. Guthrie inflicted 
a blow upon the nation by buying up, to an unex- 
ampled amount, the securities of the government, 
and sending the specie to Europe. The issuing of 
millions upon millions of bonds, without a basis of 
payment, was what caused England's terrible 
revulsion in 1825, and which should have been a 
warning to our government. Our relations with 
Mexico, our relations with Spain, the fishery ques- 
tion, were all set aside by the administration to 
practise its political sagacity in the local politics of 
the several States. The versatile genius of Mr. 
Gushing, the Attorney General, who had shifted 
from the Whigs to John Tyler, from Tyler to the 
Coalitionists, and from them to Pierce, was em- 
ployed to interfere with the politics of Mississippi 
as well as those of Massachusetts ; and this polit- 



46 REVIEW. 

ical interference he called an '' administration meas- 
ure," to defeat the Union candidate. A similar 
action occurred to secure disunion leaders in Geor- 
gia and Alabama. In New York, it had removed 
an honorable and high-minded collector for having 
selected men to fill offices under him who were 
true to the Union. This brought down the denun- 
ciation of her Dickinson, her Maurice, her Cooley, 
and other distinguished patriots. 

In the forty or fifty thousand offices of the coun- 
try Mr. Pierce has made loyalty to the administra- 
tion the sole test of merit. The spoils of millions 
have been used to corrupt the country and foster 
agitation ; and the nomination and election of 
Franklin Pierce, by the preceding course of his 
political managers, evidently proved a fraud upon 
the country, which had been grossly deceived. 

"Worthless Mexican treaties, absorbing millions 
of money, were wantonly made by the administra- 
tion. It created the most extraordinary plunder 
among the public lands, by recommending land 
grants. A clerk in the lower house of Congress 
was appointed through the especial dictation of 
Mr. Pierce. In fine, those who entertained the 



REVIEW. 



47 



views of the foreign-lie arte d executive, or ac- 
knowledged the supreme power of the Pope of 
Eome, and would secure the votes of his Irish 
subjects, were the sure favorites of Mr. Pierce 
and his administration. The press of the coun- 
try soon deserted the man who had deserted his 
principles. 

Pliny, while looking at the agitation of Vesu- 
vius, and disregarding the danger, was overwhelmed 
alive / with the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
So when, at the close of the first year of the Pierce 
administration, the lava of political misrule and ruin 
having begun to overspread the land. Pierce looked 
upon the eruption unconscious of the danger to 
himself, or the magnitude of the mischief and evils 
he had brought upon his indignant and deceived 
countrymen. As if a blasting sirocco had swept 
over the land, or an earthquake had shaken it, 
noise and civil discord were rampant, and agitation 
and confusion shook the very foundations of the 
White House. But, amid this murky atmosphere, 
the roaring thunder of a people outraged, the 
lightning flash which might terrify any but a neo- 
phyte or political automaton, there stood one man 



48 REVIEW. 



I 



listless and unmoved, reproved, rebuked, with th 
kindling curses of a nation around and upon Mm, 
and a responsibility so awful that it might over- 
whelm an ano^el, — and that man was Pierce. 



! 
I 



CHAPTERII. 

THE SECOND YEAR OF PIERCE's ADMINISTRATION. 

On the 20tli of August, 1847, Gen. Scott de- 
feated the Mexicans before the gates of the capi- 
tal, in a bloody battle, and expelled them. Santa 
Anna asked for an armistice, and it was granted for 
seven days by Scott. The perfidious dictator, Santa 
Anna, deserved no such magnanimity from Ameri- 
cans ; and the battles of Chapultepec, Molino del 
Key, and the Garitas, were the bloody price of 
such concessions. So, now, while recurring to the 
train of evils which Franklin Pierce has brought 
upon the country, we cannot wipe out the dark 
stain which he has put upon our national honor ; 
nor can we refrain from holding him and his advis- 
ers to strict and awful responsibility for those 
deeds of mal-administration which have filled with 
indignation every lover of his country. And, re- 
curring to Santa Anna, it is our solemn duty 
to warn the people^ against the example of his 
5 



50 REVIEW. 

treacliery, and urging tliem not to cease hostilities 
against the heinous acts and dangerous policy of 
this administration. Let our countrymen improve 
the bitter experience, through which they have 
passed and are passing, to save the Union and the 
land from all the horrors of an intestine war. 

Less than one year had fully demonstrated the 
irreparable error of the American people in elect- 
ing a man as their chief magistrate, without charac- 
ter or antecedents. No high sense of honor, no 
principle of action, controlled the policy of his 
administration. Aliens and leaders of treacherous 
factions, who compose the influential corps around 
the executive, have given power to agitation, and, 
in the room of a patriotic love of country, have 
substituted the degrading affinities of grovelling 
peculators. 

After the scarlet letter was found out, and it had 
passed into history that the President had written 
two sets of letters, — one for the North and another 
for the South, — he announced through his organ 
at Washington, that all office-holders must support 
the '* Nebraska Bill," which would be made the 
test of Democracy ! He did this to appease the 
South, when, in fact, the South never demanded 



REVIEW. 51 

nor desired the repeal of tlie Missouri Compromise. 
When the New Hampshire elections were ahout to 
take place, the policy shifted ; but his friends and 
neighbors were no longer deceived in the matter. 
His native state, which had given him a majority 
of six thousand votes eighteen months before, 
utterly condemned his administration in the elec- 
tion of a new Legislature ! But such was his 
deficiency in political sagacity, he enlisted more 
ardently in the success of the Nebraska iniquity 
than ever before. 

About this time the Black Warrior, bound for 
New York, from Mobile, with a cargo of cotton, 
touched at Havana on the voyage, where she was 
seized, on the plea that the cotton did not appear 
on the manifest, and forcibly retained. The custom- 
house officers had prescribed a convenient form of 
manifest, which had been used by the Black War- 
rior for eighteen months previous without molesta- 
tion. The Crescent City, too, commanded by 
Capt. Baxter, on her trip to New Orleans, had 
been similarly treated, the passengers forced to 
remain, and the ship prevented from entering the 
port, on another equally flimsy pretext. A special 
messenger was sent to Spain to Soule in reference 



52 REVIEW. 

to the Black Warrior, but the people had not faith 
to believe that the policy adopted by the adminis- 
tration would ever be carried out. Then, instead 
of employing the surplus revenue to fit out a suit- 
able navy, the administration were pressing Con- 
gress to give twenty millions of the people's money 
for a comparatively worthless strip of Mexican ter- 
ritory ! 

This single scheme, had it been consummated, as 
the administration wished, would have diverted all 
the surplus from its proper channel, and plundered 
the nation, to support the anti-republican principles 
of an ignominious Mexican despotism. 

Among other singular coincidences which likened 
Pierce's administration to that of Martin Van 
Buren, was the fact that a surplus of twenty- eight 
millions was found in the treasury at the incoming 
of both these men to the chief magistracy of the 
government. 

In three years, under Van Buren, that whole 
amount was filched from the treasury, and squan- 
dered among the States. Six millions were act- 
ually stolen. And the revolution of politics in 
1840 exhibited the just indignation of an outraged 
people. 



REVIEW. 53 

The aggregate amount of spoils in the first Con- 
gress under Pierce's administration was three 
hundred millions by the figures ! This, Americans, 
was the reason, in connection with the scarlet let- 
ter and other misdemeanors, why the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise was cast into Congress ; 
which atrocious act has lighted a flame that all the 
water from Massachusetts Bay to the Gulf of 
Mexico cannot quench. 

The loss of 180,000 votes in an administration 
elected by twenty-seven of the thirty-one states 
soon told its rapid declension. The Senate admin- 
istered its rebuke by rejecting the Gadsden treaty, 
the offspring of the executive, and reducing the 
amount to ten millions. It was evident Pierce 
wanted to take twenty millions of the hard money 
of the people to supply swindlers and speculators 
in railroad companies in a foreign country ; and, at 
the same time, such was his inconsistency, that he 
vetoed a very humane bill for distributing ten mil- 
lions of acres of land among all the states of the 
Union for the unhappy lunatics of the country, 
without taking a dollar from the treasury. This 
philanthropic enterprise for providing for the main- 
tenance and welfare of 31,474 people, either luna- 
5* 



64 REVIEW. 

tics or idiots, in our country, found the constitution 
in its way, and was cast aside by the presidential 
veto ; but no scruple existed for imposing burdens 
on the people to pay for the aggrandizement of a 
Mexican Santa Anna ! To appropriate money for 
internal improvements was considered by Mr. 
Pierce unconstitutional ; while, at the same time, 
it was quite right, in his view, to appropriate lands 
for western railroads ! 

Pending the difficulty with the Black Warrior, 
Americans, travelling in Cuba with their wives and 
daughters, were insulted ; and a party of these, 
riding on the Cero, were compelled to alight and 
kneel in the dust to a small waxen image held by 
a mulatto priest. But our American minister 
Soule, being a foreign Roman Catholic, possessed 
no spirit to exempt from such degrading humiliation 
American men and women ! 

Soule was instructed to lay before the Spanish 
government the demand for reparation in the Black 
Warrior case ; but the demand was made in vain. 
Why ? Because Calderon, who knew Pierce and 
the composition of his cabinet, had divested Spain 
from all fear or terror in the delay. 

The people paid the first year of Pierce's admin- 



REVIEW. 55 

istration sixty-eight millions oa custom dues, and 
twenty-tliree millions more in taxes than were re- 
quired to support the government. Yet not one 
thing was done to reduce the duties the people had 
to pay. In spite of the fact that importers cur- 
tailed their imports, and banks their credit for nine 
months, there were twenty -seven millions more 
brought into the country than the previous year. 
The administration would not allow fewer free arti- 
cles, and thus curtail their power in the treasury. 
Never were the people less able than at that time to 
pay taxes on sugar, coal, and foreign clothing ; but 
the committee in the lower house of Congress 
declined to remove the duties on these, to please 
the President. His financial policy was to admit 
articles of foreign manufacture free, which could 
afford to pay, and causing the absolute necessaries 
to joay, which ought to be free ! 

At the very time twenty millions were used in 
buying up government securities at a heavy pre- 
mium in the fiscal year of 1854, the deficiency 
bill, for the needful expenses of the government, 
had to be cut down one million ! And this, too, 
when a treaty with a foreign Mexican potentate 
was made to please him, by paying millions of 



56 REVIEW. 

money for a worthless strip of land, and the privi- 
lege of fighting the Apaches Indians on our own 
soil ! — for by this treaty the Mexicans got a dis- 
charge from protecting their own frontiers, and left 
Americans to pay ten millions for the humbug ! 
No government on earth ever before purchased 
its own bonds years before maturity, when they 
cost a fifth more than their par value ! 

A project to revise the tariff and reduce the 
revenues, was an ingenious scheme to cheat the 
people. Pierce would not allow fewer dutiable 
articles when two hundred and thirty- three millions 
were bringing a revenue to the government of 
forty-five and a half millions, — enough for all its 
expenses ! The first quarter of 1854 brought the 
sum of nineteen millions. Still the battle-ships of 
the naval line were all idle at the navy-yards, and 
no appropriation asked for fitting them for duty. 

Solon Borland's treaty, about this time, with 
Central America, recognizing Nicaragua, and repu- 
diating the Mosquito country, was not even read 
in cabinet. And, the administration leaving Mr. 
Buchanan to his semi-of&cial tour in Europe, to 
enlighten them on foreign affairs, turned its atten- 
tion nearer home, and set about the election of 



REVIEW. 57 

Mayor for the city of Wasliington. The adminis- 
tration candidate had the prestige of the Eoman 
Catholic influence ; and the American party 
indignantly rebuked the President's interference 
with the municipal elections of that city, by elect- 
ing the candidate who represented American prin- 
ciples, and eschewed the foreign hierarchy. 

Not one single press in New York sustained 
Pierce's dynasty in less than fourteen months after 
its advent ! The Postmaster General, Campbell, 
true to the doctrine of the Koniish church, was 
busy in restricting knowledge by trying to increase 
the tax on letter postage. To meet a deficiency of 
two millions in that department, the policy was 
attempted of increasing this tax, and reducing sal- 
aries of clerks, — a revenue accruing all the while 
nearly double the necessary expenditures of the 
government. 

In July, 1854, the Cyane, a sloop-of-war, com- 
manded by Capt. Hollins, who was enjoying pay 
and waiting orders, was directed to proceed in 
haste to San Juan de Nicaragua, called Greytown 
in honor of the British colonial secretary. Bor- 
land had communicated to Washington that he had 
been insulted at Greytown, and that passengers 



58 REVIEW. 

en route to California had also been detained, and 
their property put in peril. IloUins, on reaching 
the town, immediately demanded an apology for 
the insult to Borland, and twenty-four thousand 
dollars to indemnify the damage done to the steam^ 
ship's company. 

The Nicaraguan authorities refused flatly to 
comply with either of these demands. Hollins 
then gave them one day to reconsider the matter, 
and they still refused. He then, after providing 
means of transit for those who wished to leave, 
opened the batteries of the Cyane on the town. 
Finding, however, the bombardment Avould not 
avail, as the houses were constructed of mud and 
palm-leaves, and altogether too flimsy, Hollins de- 
tailed a corps of marines, under Lieut. Pickering, 
who burned the town to the ground ! An English 
man-of-war in the harbor remonstrated against 
this brutal act in vain. And the 12th of July, 
1854, became the day of a glorious achievement, — 
the burning of Grey town, — in the annals of Pierce's 
regime. Greytown was, in all respects, an Ameri- 
can town. It had been built up by American enter- 
prise. It had, in 1852, elected an American mayor 
and common council, and proceeded to change the 



REVIEW. 59 

constitution to accord with republican views. It 
had only a nominal dependence, therefore, on the 
Mosquito king, whom it was ready at any moment 
to discard. The opening of the transit through 
the country which Americans had obtained against 
British pretensions had caused the early emigra- 
tion from the United States ; and, while Ameri- 
cans waived none of their own rights, as such, all 
the property in Greytown which was not in their 
possession belonged to people with whom they were 
friendly. The United States government had 
recognized the authorities of Greytown as late as 
July, 1853. It became enlisted with peculiar 
interest in its welfare, as being the only spot in 
Central America where civil and religious liberty 
had taken root in the soil, and where the laws were 
as faithfully administered as in the United States. 
The whole conduct in this matter, whether as 
regards Borland, the authorities at Washington, or 
Hollins at the scene of action, is an outrage so de- 
void of all palliation as to demand the condemna- 
tion of the civilized world. Hollins had no more 
right to perpetrate that outrage than he had to 
destroy any town on the Hudson or Mississippi riv- 
ers. It was not only atrociously barbarous, but 



60 REVIEW. 

the administration committed an unlawful act 
against that defenceless village, by making war 
upon it, which the constitution makes a sufficient 
ground for impeachment. Congress, only, not 
President Pierce, is invested with power to declare 
war. Borland divested himself, by his conduct, of 
all official prestige, and ought to hai^e been pun- 
ished on the spot. He had interfered with the 
authorities of Grreytown in protecting a murderer 
against their efforts to obtain him ; and when he 
pointed a loaded rifle at the officer of San Juan, 
he forgot his own dignity, and contemned the very 
authorities his own government recognized. The 
people very naturally disregarded his official charac- 
ter. It was proven, however, that no attempt was 
made upon the person of Borland, even when an 
indignant people surrounded the house to arrest 
the murderer Borland had harbored. Why did the 
administration select this defenceless town to make 
an exhibition of its belligerent propensities ? For 
the very reason that it was independent, and cut 
off from the protection of England and Nicara- 
gua. And, while the whole civilized world were 
sneering at the game of "hide and seek" which 
Pierce had played so long with Cuba, he caught 



REVIEW. 61 

with eagerness the opportunity offered by Borland's 
misdemeanors, to redeem his own folly by the 
destruction of a defenceless village, ''without the 
loss of a single man on either side." 

Pierce's administration inflicted an outrage upon 
Americans in demanding an apology for Borland, 
and in asking an indemnity of twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars for a company owing all its rights and 
privileges to Nicaragua. And for the protection 
of the interests of this steamship company the 
houses and property, as well as ships of Americans, 
were sacrificed by this administration. And, after 
all, no indemnity was given — no apology made ! 

The especial glory of this act is due to President 
Pierce, Marcy, Dobbin, and their loyal employe, 
Hollins, who thus became the hero of the Grey- 
town bombardment. With our fishing interests 
unadjusted, and at the mercy of British cruisers ; 
Central America on the verge of rain ; France tax- 
ing our ships without law ; Spain firing into our 
steamers, Mr. Marcy was busily engaged in giving 
his directions about coats ! Finally, the fishing 
business was discovered to be too complicated for 
Washington diplomacy. So a part of it was handed 
over to London, retaining only that which con- 
6 



62 REVIEW. 

cerned the British Provinces. And the govern- 
ment made so good a bargain in this, that we ad- 
mit their exports free^ and let them tax our 
own ! 

News now arrived from Spain that the despatches 
from Washington, in the Black Warrior case, had 
been treated with contempt, and Soule was near 
receiving his passports. All he had done worthy 
of record, in the mean while, was to fight one duel 
himself, and have another fought in his family ! 
Upon the receipt of this intelligence from Spain 
of the Black Warrior case, the President asked 
Congress for ten millions to redress the wrong ! 
When this got to the Senate, from the House, sena- 
tors very properly wanted to know more about it. 
They bore in mind, probably, the Gadsden treaty, 
when Mr. Pierce desired twenty millions, which 
they thought fit to reduce to ten ! This inquiry, 
then, drew forth a paper from the President, which 
showed no war at all, but seemed to want the 
appropriation as a discretionary fund, which the 
Senate, with a democratic majority of fifteen at 
the time, refused to place at the disposal of Mr. 
Pierce ! The Mexican treaty, negotiated by Mr. 
Gadsden, was the only one which passed the Con- 



REVIEW. 63 

gress of 1854, that of right belonged to the 
administration of Franklin Pierce. 

The Japanese treaty originated with the admin- 
istration of Millard Fillmore, to which only its 
accomplishment properly belongs. Pierce did all 
he possibly could to prevent that achievement, 
which has opened up this new channel to commer- 
cial enterprise. Mr. Dobbin wrote to Commodore 
Perry, in the winter of 1854, that the administra- 
tion did not approve the purpose for which he had 
been sent to the Pacific, and directed him to return 
home immediately, and to send the ships at once 
to New York and Boston. 

He spoke contemptuously of the effort to make 
a treaty with Japan, and said it would only 
result in our humiliation. This was evidently 
designed to reflect upon Fillmore and Webster, by 
whom it had been projected. Fortunately the 
despatch of Mr. Dobbin did not reach Commodore 
Perry in time, or the ports of Japan, sealed to all 
but the Chinese and Dutch, would not now have 
been opened by American men. 

This order from Pierce's Secretary of the Navy 
to stop Perry from going to Japan, and thus to 
prevent the treaty, was published to the world in 



64 REVIEW. 

the columns of the President's organ, the Wash- 
inoion Union. And, would you believe it, 
Americans, that after the policy of our American 
statesmen, Fillmore and Webster, had proved suc- 
cessful over that of English diplomatists, with whom 
they coped triumphantly, and Commodore Perry 
had made the treaty, the administration organ 
came out and claimed the victory ! 

The colonial reciprocity treaty was also forced 
on Pierce's administration. It began with that of 
Millard Fillmore, and in connection with the settle- 
ment of the fishery question, and was the closing 
ofiicial labor of our lamented Webster. The neu- 
trality treaty with Russia was Russia's proposal 
through Mr. Stockel, the minister from that court. 
Mr. Pierce only did not refuse to accord with that 
view, in his communication to the Senate. 

The footing of appropriation bills shows that mil- 
lions more were granted by the Congress of 1854 
than ever before in time of peace. In every de- 
partment of the government increased expenditures 
were demanded, and the people's money from 
the treasury lavished to subsidize their free press. 
The Congress of 1854 was essentially a Pierce 
Congress ; and, but for the firmness of senators, 



REVIEW. 65 

would liave cost the country over one hundred 
millions ! As it was, it escaped with seventy or 
eighty millions, rejecting the item of ten millions, 
which the administration asked without being able 
to tell the people hoAV it was to be applied. 

We find, then, from the records, that the treaty 
with Mexico, speculation in land grants, and the 
burning of Greyto^^, by Hollins, which the 
administration endorsed and passed to their own 
account, constituted its signal achievements in the 
Congress of 1854. 

The English, French, and Americans, from Grey- 
town, soon knocked at the door of Congress for 
indemnity ; and the American people saw at what 
dear cost to themselves they had put a man in the 
chair at Washington, to meddle with business which 
did not belong to him, and then leave them to pay 
for the whistle. 

It is well known that Millard Fillmore was the 
man who instituted an investigation into the Gard- 
iner case, and pressed it to a conclusion under his 
district attorney. That officer only received for 
his fidelity and efficiency a removal by Mr. Pierce. 
In the face of this fact, the organ of this present 
6"= 



66 REVIEW. 

administration claimed this as a measure of his 
executive. 

After the New Hampshire antecedents were ex- 
posed, the Atwood speeches seen, the scarlet letter 
read, Mr. Pierce was announced as the father of 
the Nebraska hill, and the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise was* called a national measure ! At 
another time, the coming elections required him to 
be less courageous ; and his organ says then, he, 
Mr. Pierce, " only did not oppose it " ! 

Clerks in all the departments were proscribed, 
and required to sink all individuality as Christians 
and citizens. They were forbidden to hold or 
express a sentiment in opposition to the Eoman 
Catholic hierarchy, which meant to repudiate 
American principles. Pierce proscribed Ameri- 
cans to give place to foreigners, and ejected them 
from office for voting for American men. Exam- 
ples of this course of his political oppression are 
as thick as autumn leaves. God defend our coun- 
try from ever having another man as its chief 
magistrate bound to propitiate the papal supremacy 
of a foreign despot ! Pierce has crushed out Pro- 
testants for foreign Roman Catholics, until the land 
groans under the curse. 



REVIEW. 67 

Grant Thorburn states that he saw Americans, 
who bore honorable scars in our battles, turned out 
of the federal offices in New York to make way for 
fresh Irish voters, who had been driven from their 
country by the Irish Kebellion. But, of all our 
Presidents from the days of Washington, it was 
reserved for Franklin Pierce alone to bargain with 
the Pope of Eome, who, in pledging papal votes 
through his Jesuit emissaries here, could seize 
the opportunity to spread his malign influence over 
our beautiful land, and augment the means by which 
ihe aims to destroy our liberties. 

Mr. Kennedy was removed from the census office 
to prevent the actual number of Romanists from 
being known to the American people. To accom- 
plish this purpose, De Bow, a Catholic, was put in 
his place. The advantage of that post being in 
the power of the foreign hierarchy, Americans can 
very well judge how it has been used. 

On the 30th of August, 1854, Soule demanded 
his passports, and fled from Spain. He had acted 
with so much indiscretion, that in less than twelve 
months he was compelled to leave to avoid the dis- 
grace of a dismissal, which he apprehended, from 
he Spanish government. 



68 REVIEW. 

The royal family had retreated from his familiar 
approaches ; he then turned to the Jacobin democ- 
racy ; and, that failing him, he rapidly escaped 
to Bayonne. 

Mr. Sickles had been sent, in the mean while, 
to Soule, with a proposal from the administration 
to loan Spain a large sum of money, and take Cuba 
for security. But Soule had left, and better for 
this country if he had never returned. 

Consider for a moment what a spectacle our^^ 
nation presented to the civilized world. Borland; 
shielding a murderer from justice, and causing the 
destruction of a useful seaport town, and a loss of j 
several hundred thousand dollars to the treasury ; 
Soule intermeddling with the private interests of 
Spain, and escaping from the country to save an 
expulsion ; Belmont, another foreigner, at the , 
Hague, dealing in exchanges, and negotiating a loan, 
for the Czar to carry forward his war with the allies. | 
This arrangement was only saved from consumma- 1 
tion by being discovered, through the French minis- 
ter of foreign affairs, at Paris. 

Others of our foreign ambassadors were engaged , 
either in rendering themselves ridiculous by] 
discoursing on universal democratic liberty, or^ 



REVIEW. 69 

seeking subserviently to conciliate crowned des- 
pots. 

' While American nationality was thus figuring 
abroad, a meeting, principally of office-holders and 
office-seekers, came off at Washington city, "to 
express unbounded confidence in the wisdom, patri- 
otism, and integrity, of President Pierce's adminis- 
tration.'' Prominent among those who officiated 
lon that occasion appear the city postmaster, the 
navy agent, the district attorney, naval store- 
keeper, timber agent, organ editor, &c. &c., who, 
like faithful employes, wanted to add fame to the 
President's notoriety, which it certainly very much 
needed just at that time. 

Soon after Pierce came into office, the term of 
Brigham Young, the Mormon Governor of Utah, 
expired, and Colonel Steptoe was appointed his 
successor. Young, with his fifty wives, declared 
he held office by a " higher law " than the consti- 
tution, and " defied Pierce to put him out." The 
i" saints " all believed Young superior in power to 
the President of the United States ; and they have 
not been mistaken. He set the government and 
the laws at defiance, and is there still ! Instead 
of the administration forcibly going into Utah and 



1 



70 REVIEW. 



f 



demanding the surrender of its government intc 
Col. Steptoe's hands, it attempted a ruse upon th( 
Mormons, which signally failed. A battalion of 
soldiers, commanded by Steptoe, under the pretence 
of going to California, were directed to stop at the 
Mormon kingdom, and seize an unsuspecting mo- 
ment, after obtaining the good-will of these peo- 
ple, to secure the government. But this did 
not answer, and Steptoe was obliged to retreat^ 
carrying off forty or fifty women ! No more 
military have been sent there since, and no further 
attempt has been made to send a governorj 
Young, in the mean while, threatens the United 
States authorities against further invasion of 
his premises. 

What a source of mortifying reflection springs 
up in every intelligent American's mind at this 
foul and degrading submission of the government 
of this great and Christian nation, in allowing alii 
the civil and religious power of a territory, under 
the protection and care of the Union, to be concen- 
trated in the guilty and licentious Brigham Young ! 
By the criminal neglect of its duty, the govern- 
ment has for three years allowed the abominable 
system of polygamy, so abhorrent to the American 



REVIEW. 71 

people, and at war witli American institutions, to 
be encouraged and fostered on American soil. 

The population of Utah has increased with 
extraordinary rapidity in the past three years, by 
the influx of foreign immigrants, who have been 
wheedled into this most stupid imposture, and most 
shamefully and egregiously deceived by '' elders '' 
commissioned abroad by Young. This detestable 
Mormon authority exists at present as the only 
authority there. The power of the government 
should be immediately exerted to check and subdue 
the further progress of this odious usurpation, and 
the dissolute practices which violate all laws of 
decency and morality, both of heaven and of man. 
The longer this anomalous power is suffered to defy 
the lawful authority of our rulers, the more formi- 
dable it will become. Our citizens — that is, pub- 
lic opinion — • should force the government to end 
the career, and drive out of power this heartless 
despot of a Mormon, and save the poor, deceived 
immigrants from being ensnared into the trap of 
so designing a knave, and the country from the 
humiliation and disgrace of this bold and flagrant 
iniquity. An act of this character, by this 
administration, would have been far better than 



72 REVIEW. 

to have been engaged in the destruction of an 
American seaport. 

During this administration, outrages of every 
nature have been constantly perpetrated upon 
American citizens abroad ; and their complaints 
have been wafted to this government in vain. 
Spain, almost the weakest of European states, in- 
sulted us by every indignity. Mexico, the weak- 
est on this continent, shamefully cheated us. Why 
did the administration adhere to free fish and tax 
coal by the Reciprocity Treaty? The duty taken 
from coal would have reduced it to six dollars a 
ton, and largely benefited all the people. 

As the revenue of the country expanded, so 
were politicians now ready to absorb it. Forty 
millions once supported the government ; and can 
it be believed that seventy millions under Pierce 
did not do it ? Bribes of all kinds came into vogue 
to procure stations under the government, or seats 
in Congress. Spartan firmness on the part of the 
people could not keep politicians out of the gold 
mines at Washington. Authenticated facts prove 
that as high as twenty-five thousand dollars were 
given for a seat in Congress, for a main chance at 
the treasury. 



REVIEW. 73 

While matters were thus progressing at home, 
they still looked squally abroad. A minister had 
been sent to Spain for redress on account of the 
Black Warrior ; and ships under Commodore 
Macauley sent to Cuba to enforce it, after it had 
received no response for so long a time that the 
public had become wearied out with expectation 
and anxiety for the denouement. 

Do Americans know who really prevented the 
case from being settled ? It was Mr. Soule, whom 
the President sent to represent us at the Spanish 
court. He kept the despatch, and declined to 
show it to the Spanish government, as the admin- 
istration directed. 

About four months after Soule had been in 
Madrid, he visited Ostend, and left his secretary in 
charge of his official duties. In his absence the 
Secretary of Legation produced the despatch to 
the Spanish ministers, wdiich stated the terms 
which w^ould be satisfactory to this government. 
They w^ere immediately accepted, and the Black 
Warrior difficulty was settled. This prevented 
war then with Cuba. 

Soule, thus foiled by the lionestij of his secre- 
tary, caused him at once to be dismissed from the 
7 



74 EEVIEW. 

service, by order of President Pierce ; while 
Pierce continued to reward Soule, who had not 
only omitted to present the plan proposed by him 
for settling the matter with Spain, but had also 
put indignity upon himself and the lawful authori- 
ties of the land. Brigham Young had not set the 
authorities at Washington more at defiance than 
Soule had done in Spain. 

The next effort to embroil us in war with Cuba 
was not less abortive. The report was that France 
and England had consj^ired to Africanize Cuba. 
The administration were again for war w^ith 
France, England, and Spain ; and we were to 
join Eussia in alliance against them. Presently 
the English government heard of this ridiculous 
nonsense, and Lord Clarendon came out and stated 
that the negotiations between England and France 
were about their own business, and had nothing 
on earth to do with Cuba, Spain, or the United 
States. 

In October, 1854, the French papers announced 
that a Congress of American diplomats, Bu- 
chanan, Mason, Soule, Yroom, Belmont, , 

and Owen, were to meet for some secret purpose, 
either at Paris or Baden Spa. This rumor finally 



J 



REVIEW. 75 

resulted in the Ostend Conference ; and, after a 
season of the most profound secrecy on the part 
of the administration, the manifesto appeared as 
the production of the concurrent wisdom of the 
authorities at Washington on the one part, and that 
of Buchanan, Soule, and Mason, on the other. 

Pending the difficulty in the Black Y/arrior 
case, caused entirely by Soule 's refusal to present 
to the Spanish ministers the proposition of the 
administration for adjustment, Pierce, instead of 
acting as became the president of the nation, and 
instantly removing Soule, proposed to send on two 
commissioners to assist him. 

Americans, mark the absurdity, nay, the pusil- 
lanimity of that act ! The treasury was to be 
filched to pay two more men to go to Spain to pre- 
vail upon a refractory minister to do his duty ! In 
other words, the administration wanted to employ 
three men, at the government expense, to deliver 
one letter, which one respectable clerk, from any 
department, could have done just as well, irrespect- 
ive of official distinction. Messrs. Dallas and 
Cobb, of Georgia, had been selected for this new 
mission, when Soule again interposed, and pre- 
vented its consummation. Then it was that Soule 



76 REVIEW. 

called to his aid Buchanan and Mason ; and hence 
the origin of the Ostend Congress. 

Ostend is in Belgium, and the countries that 
surround it are so utterly opposed to democratic 
liberty, that the merest suspicion would consign a 
man to the keeping of the police ; and any meet- 
ing favorable to republican views would have 
called the troops of the government to arms. 

Kossuth, not succeeding in causing our interfer- 
ence with Austria, after eloquently defending the 
heroic struggle of Hungary, took passage for Eng- 
land. Cuba now was the bait held" out by Soule, 
Sanders, & Co. ; and Kossuth and all the other 
republican refugees at London united in bringing 
about the Ostend Conference. The whole world 
was excited at the announcement. Mr. Sickles was 
sent to Washington before its sitting ; and Mr. 
Dudley Mann, and Mr. McRea, our Consul to 
Paris, followed on, upon its close. All the light 
the people got at these strange sights was that we 
were to have Cuba in six months. 

The Conference met ostensibly to adjust all our 
diiferences with Spain. Buchanan, Mason, and 
Soule, recommended that the United States should 
buy Cuba at once, or take it some other way, if 



REVIEW. 77 

Spain refused to sell. They said England and 
France were favorable to the purchase. 

We here give the exact words of the manifesto 
to which James Buchanan, as ambassador to the 
English government, was first to append his name. 

"After," says the document, ''we shall have 
offered Spain a price for Cuba far beyond its pres- 
ent value, — that is, one hundred and twenty 
millions of dollars, — and this shall have been 
refused, it will then be time to consider the ques- 
tion. Does Cuba in the possession of Spain 
seriously endanger our internal peace, and the 
existence of our cherished Union ? Should this 
question be answered in the affirmative, then hy 
every law, human and divine, we shall be justified 
in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power. 
Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count 
the cost nor regard the odds which Spain ?night 
enlist against us. We should be recreant to our 
DUTY and commit base treason against our posterity, 
should we permit Cuba to be Africanized,'^ etc. 

Mark it, Americans ! Buchanan first, then 
Mason and Soule, declare that '' every divine law 
justifies this government in wresting Cuba from 
Spain.'' Spain must either sell Cuba for one 



78 REVIEW. 

hundred and fifty millions, or tlie divine law 
requires Americans to take it, and not stop to 
"count the loss'' to themselves in treasure or 
blood ! This is the civil code and the religion of 
the Ostend Conference ! 

This was not all that Conference met to do. It 
was an inside caucus of Soule, Sickles, Belmont, 
and Sanders, to put Buchanan on the presidential 
track to carry out the Ostend principles in 1857, 
which he is pledged to do if the people elect him. 

In this unwarrantable proceeding, see our min- 
ister at the Court of St. James neglecting his 
proper official duties, omitting to settle the Central 
American difficulties, delaying the Eeciprocity 
Treaty, and becoming a passive tool in the hands 
of a political cabal, composed of renegadoes and 
aliens ; — this is enough to make the very stones 
cry out shame ! shame ! The administration, who 
cooperated in this movement, never meant that a 
political rival should reap the benefit ; and, per- 
ceiving its own folly in the matter, Mr. Pierce 
retreated from that engagement as best he could. 

The next ridiculous attitude in which we were 
placed abroad was caused by the refusal of Louis 
Napoleon to allow our Spanish minister, Soule, 



REVIEW. 79 

to enter France. Then there was another flutter 
about war, and the quarrel of Napoleon and Soule 
for the alleged interference of the latter in some 
private matters, with which the public had neither 
interest nor concern, was going to involve us in a 
continental revolution, beginning at Paris. 

Mr. Mason, our minister there, felt it necessary 
to interpose for our national honor, and refused to 
hold his mission unless Napoleon withdrew his 
order. Napoleon backed out. And after Soule 
was feted at London, he was actually invited to 
come to Paris ! 

This was quite a triumph to the authorities at 
Washington, — almost equal to another Greytown 
victory ! 

Our national standing now became so much im- 
paired abroad, that intelligent foreigners were 
inquiring what had become of ail the respectability 
on the other side of the Atlantic. Even the little 
State of Holland presumed to treat us with con- 
tempt. The case of Gibson was invested with a 
national interest, as in its decision every Amer- 
ican citizen, and every ship-owner of the country, 
was concerned. Gibson, it is remembered, had 
been imprisoned in Sumatra, and escaped to New 



80 REVIEW. 

York. He claimed the indemnity of one hundred 
thousand dollars from that gorernment. And the 
administration directed Belmont to get it. Bel- 
mont caused letters to be written which so alarmed 
the Dutch government, that they gave up not only 
all the papers belonging to Gibson, but their own ! 
Still, Belmont being engaged in the Rothschild loan 
for Russia, had not time to attend to the business 
of American citizens. And when Gibson remon- 
strated at the injustice of the delay, the adminis- 
tration, through Mr. Marcy, tells Belmont to 
'' persevere in your demand, resolutely, but temper- 
ately.'' 

Why not have spoken out 'like men, and 
demanded the payment, or warned them to expect 
reprisals? 0, no! What was the consequence, 
Americans ? Why, Belmont sets it aside altogether 
— surrenders it — on the ground that the outrage 
was perpetrated under Dutch laws, which, however 
barbarous, we were bound to respect. And the 
administration, after all its proposed energy in the 
business, bows to the supremacy of foreign laws 
which had trampled down an American citizen, 
and left Gibson without even an appeal for clemency 
in his behalf to Congress, which was unable to re- 



REVIEW. 81 

ject his claim. This policy of non-interference in 
behalf of American citizens whose lives and prop- 
erty were endangered every day abroad, and at the 
mercy of savages, was enough to bleed the nation 
to the heart. This gross delinquency, too, of his 
promises, after an inaugural which confidently 
swaggered about the protection of American rights, 
and a Koszta letter, written to divert the people, 
and make them believe Pierce had kept the faith 
upon which they elected him ! 

Thus from ignorance or personal malice our 
people have been made to drink the bitter cup they 
unwittingly prepared for themselves. 

Tw^o years had not passed before all the efful- 
gence Fillmore put upon the country had been 
darkened, and nothing high or convex could be 
seen. A large party who had favored Pierce's 
election were deeply chagrined and disappointed. 

In the European Avar Ave had been made to assume 
whatever attitude pleased our ambassadors. Mr. 
Spence put us on the side of Turkey, at Constanti- 
nople. Mr. Seymour, at St. Petersburg, on that 
of Russia. Abandoning the Monroe doctrine ; 
repudiating the king of Musquito, and then recog- 
nizing this same king ; sustaining the Dutch 



82 REVIEW. 

against our own countrymen ; making demands on 
Spain, then backing out ; — these were among tlie 
doings abroad. Then look at home, Americans ! 

Our gold was steadily going out to England, 
thence to the continent, to aid the war. There 
was surplus money enough in the treasury to have 
saved the country from the terrible crash in 1854. 
Pierce was told that the condition of the country 
would not allow putting the sum of twenty-eight 
millions in the sub-treasury ; and schemes w^cre 
proposed to place it in the commercial world to 
avert the crisis. But the administration would not 
consent to part with the money for purposes higher 
than its own sinister plans. Such, too, was its skilful 
financiering, that the Secretary of the Treasury 
was buying up United States acceptances years be- 
fore maturity, and giving one dollar and twenty- 
one cents for every dollar advanced to the nation. 

Twenty-four millions were being spent in pur- 
chasing twenty millions of the public debt, when 
the credit of the country did not need it. No 
debtor pressed for it, and it would not sell but at the 
enormous increase of twenty-one per cent. Four mil- 
lions of money were then a useless item, paid when 
the people needed it at home, and at their expense. 



REVIEW. " 83 

The inflation of bank paper ; the excessive em- 
ployment of bonds without a specie basis ; the 
European war, and the consequent drain upon 
European gold, caused foreign creditors to demand 
payment, and cease to loan to our citizens ; and 
so, in 1854, the blow came, which reduced so many 
to want and ruin. They who possessed capital in 
railroad bonds and banks found the dividends 
suddenly cut off, and themselves reduced to want, 
or compelled to sacrifice their investments. Thou- 
sands were thus made beggars, while widows and 
orphans who had been provided, by deceased pro- 
tectors, with home and comfort, lost frequently 
their all. House-building, ship-building, railroad- 
building, all stopped. 

Now, wx inquire, who could have prevented that 
revulsion, and saved the misery of the suffering 
masses in 1854 ? Franklin Pierce and his adminis- 
tration. In contrast to this suicidal policy, to have 
seen smiling plenty and peace and progress in all 
the industrial and mechanic arts ; to have given 
a fresh impetus to our commercial world ; to have 
afforded the facility for pushing on our internal 
improvements, our railroads and canals, would have 
been far more glorious than to have been engaged 



84 • REVIEW. 

in making Ostend piracy a principle of human 
and divine law. 

Merchants declared that all they wanted was 
time — a few weeks more — and they could with- 
stand the storm. At this very crisis of January, 
1854, when government refused its timely sym- 
pathy, there were idle in the treasury upwards 
of twelve millions ! And thus the gold lost to 
the merchants and banks by the government 
exportation was the great cause of reducing their 
business twenty-eight per cent. 

While the administration was busy in finding 
out constitutional objections to the noble attributes 
of benevolence in affording national aid to the un- 
happy class of lunatics, it was engaged also in the 
objectionable business of recommending land grants 
to Mormons ! Had Congress refused to grant these, 
as it had a right to do. Mormon progress would 
have been checked, and Utah could not now be 
preparing to approach the door of Congress to ap- 
ply for admittance into the confederacy of States. 

Far better had it been for the President, had his 
constitutional adviser, Mr. Cushing, attempted to 
show him the fallacy of his reasoning upon land 
grants and the lunatic bill, than to have been hunt- 



REVIEW. 85 

ing up precedents in France and England to justify 
the President before the country for an attack on 
Spain in her colonies. What must the world think 
of an American administration going to monarchies 
to find an apology for a republican President, 
elected under a free democratic constitution ! ^ 

But Mr. Gushing, who has been " everything by 
turns, and nothing long,'' has shown a greater 
consistency in his ambition for war than in any- 
thing else he has professed. Possibly, his miracu- 
lous escape from the Matamoras ditch has had 
something to do in fostering this propensity. Every 
man who lives beyond his means breaks down. 
So every government administered on a fraudulent 
basis will reap the fate of its just desert. The 
prosperity and progress the country sustained under 

* The original draft of the Ostend Manifesto is now in this coun- 
try, and appears chiefly in the hand-Avriting of James Buchanan. 
The amendments, which exhibit the " highwayman's plea," the 
piratical filibustering portions, are written by Buchanan himself. 
Soule dese)?ves notice, however, for the conception of that confer- 
ence, and was the first to indite the celebrated document, to make it 
clear to Buchanan and Mason what was to be done. But Soule, 
well versed in tactics, saw that capital was to be made by giving 
Buchanan prominence in the business ; and the old disciple accord- 
ingly re-wrote the manifesto, and in the spirit worthy of his accom- 
plished master. 

8 



86 



REVIEW. 



Fillmore was now strongly contrasted with the 
ruin and calamity which followed Pierce's admin- 
istration. The year 1837, under Van Buren, was 
not more hopelessly disastrous than that of 1854, 
under Pierce. The agitation arising from the 
Kansas-Nebraska hill was deep, intense, and 
universal ; and discredit and distrust, by the 
absorption of gold from the healthful channels of 
trade and commerce, in connection with a partial 
failure of the crops that year, made it one of 
serious calamity to the people. Was it strange, 
then, Americans, that the fall elections at that 
period should unmistakably declare your feelings for 
this administration ? They did ; and what then 
gave the people encouragement and hope, was the 
promise of probity and prosperity which the Amer- 
ican party was able to make them. 

About January, 1855, another case occurred of 
imprisonment of American citizens at Cuba. My. 
John S. Thrasher, of New Orleans, addressed the 
authorities at Washington in behalf of these pris- 
oners. From personal knowledge he was able to 
give a picture of the brutality exercised towards 
Americans in Havana which should have fired the 
spirit of every patriot man and woman in the land. 



REVIEW. 87 

He stated that their custom was to put Americans 
in solitary confinement for days or weeks, until 
they were mentally and physically enfeebled. An 
attorney of the court then enters, and propounds 
all manner of questions, which have no sort of 
bearing on the case, extorting such concessions as 
to secure the punishment of the prisoner. But, 
yet, with the Koszta letter and the inaugural 
before them, these Americans, like many others, 
were left to the savage ferocity of tyrants, by the 
government of Franklin Pierce. 

Thank Heaven, we Americans love our country 
and countrymen still more for the spasmodic 
throes through which we have passed under this 
administration. It cannot take from us our energy 
and industry. It cannot destroy our magnificent 
cities. It cannot tear up our vast railways, nor 
make a desolate waste of our cultivated plains. 
And when the storm has swept it away, we will 
hold on to our principles, and prosper by our 
works. 

The active propagandism and manifest destiny 
of Mr. Pierce's foreign policy, which began with 
court costume and ended with the Ostend Confer- 
ence, was about this period discovered to have 



88 REVIEW. 

originated with Mr. Dudley Mann, the late 
assistant Secretary of State. This fact was brought 
to light by the publication of the two remarkable 
letters of Mr. Mann; one on '^ Instructions for 
War with France," the other on " Court Cos- 
tume." These were written from Paris, the 7th 
of January, 1853, to this country, for Mr. Pierce's 
benefit. After arguing the great importance of 
a treaty of alliance with Switzerland, which the 
Senate unanimously ratified, Mr. Mann gives 
an account of the states of Europe, their ability 
and power for war, as though he had the secrets 
of every crowned head in his hat. '' Go," said 
he, '' speedily to Gen. Cass, Mr. Soule, and all 
others you may think advisable, and implore them 
to make a demonstration that will cause a conster- 
nation at the Tuilleries, by placing ten millions of 
dollars at the disposal of the President, for pro- 
tecting our interests against foreign aggression, 
and to authorize the construction of ten or fifteen 
war steamers. If the Arabia makes a good 
run, this will reach you four days before Congress 
adjourns." 

Now, Americans, you learn for the first time for 
what Mr. Pierce wanted that ten millions. The 



REVIEW. 89 

Senate refused him because he could give no 
account of the purpose to which it was to be 
applied. It was not to fight Cuba, as we all sup- 
posed, but to carry forward Mr. Mann's diplomacy, 
by causing Louis Napoleon to become alarmed, and 
making an excitement at the Tuilleries ! 

A beautiful commentary upon American integ- 
rity and honor, — for a President to connive at so 
low a trick to declare our greatness before the states 
of Europe ! 

Americans have no reason whatever to be in love 
with the government of Louis Napoleon ; but has 
that anything to do with the good faith with ^vhich 
we are bound to deal with him ? Does not one 
sixth of our cotton go to France ? Does she not 
purchase annually of us more than five millions of 
dollars' worth of flour ? Have not more than four 
hundred of our vessels cleared for French ports 
in a year? Except England, British North 
America, and Cuba, our shipping is more exten- 
sive in France than any other part of the world. 
French ships come here in the same proportion. 
We take ten millions of dollars' worth of their 
silks annually, and five millions' worth of their 

wines. 

8# 



90 REVIEW. 

More Americans reside in France than in any- 
other place in Europe oxcept England. But there 
is one remarkable fact, that, while the fac- 
tors of France are equal to those of any part of 
the world, and the population is also ten millions 
greater than England, she only takes from the 
United States fifteen millions of our raw mate- 
rial, while England takes sixty ! Why is this ? 
Because our goods are taxed in France, and go 
free to England. We, too, admit French goods 
free, which makes the tonnage American ships pay 
in France nine times greater than we exact of them. 
How much better, then, had Mr. Pierce done his 
duty, and had this inequality and injustice towards 
American interests righted, than to have been fol- 
lowing Mr. Mann's directions to frighten France by 
a ruse for war ! How much better to have tried 
to get the duty off of our raw cotton, beef, and 
pork, and thus aided the interests of the Ameri- 
can people, who could then afford in return to 
take greater quantities of their silks and wines ! 
How much better thus to have served the sub- 
stantial wants of the people, than, by asking ten 
millions of their money, to make them look in the 
eyes of mankind like a nation of fools ! It was 



REVIEW. 91 

no fault of Mr. Pierce that we have not been in- 
volved in actual war with France, more than Spain. 

We find, in the same way, that the instructions 
to foreign diplomats, by Mr. Marcy, to have coats 
*'with an American eagle on their buttons, and 
wear citizen's hats,'' was also the direction con- 
tained in Mr. Dudley Mann's letter. 

Mr. Soule now, finding the Ostend Manifesto re- 
jected at Washington, by the efibrfcs of Mr. Marcy, 
it is said, and against the wishes of the President 
and Mr. Gushing, resigned ! He was naturally 
indignant at being censured for doing just what he 
was sent to do, viz., to try and get Cuba, somehow. 
His speech in New York, before he left our shores, 
plainly told the people the course he meant to pur- 
sue, and filled them with apprehensions and dismay. 

Soule returned, leaving most of the difficulties 
with Spain unadjusted. The Ostend proceedings 
had been kept secret, and the friends of the 
administration in Congress got it referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Relations in the House, to 
elude investigation. The Senate, also, though 
possessing the power, did not, up to the close of 
the session, exercise it in this matter. 

Mr. Dodge was sent, with an interpreter, to the 



92 TvEVIEW. 

court of Isabella II., to succeed Mr. Soule ; and 
you can make your calculations, Americans, and 
see how much the Spanish mission alone will cost 
the government by March, 1857, in outfits and 
infits ! 

The homogeneity of this people and the peace of 
the Union have been hazarded more by this adminis- 
tration than by all the former executives since the 
government was founded. It is a solemn f\ict, that 
at the end of two vears after Pierce came into 
office, there had not been one single object of advan- 
tage to the American people accomplished through 
his administration. Xot one solitary promise made 
to them was fulfilled. If anvthins: s^ood was be- 
gun, it never was completed. Did he ever reduce 
the Koszta letter to practice when Americans were 
groaning in dungeons in foreign countries, and cry- 
ing for mercy in vain ? Did not the foreign em- 
bassy refuse to adopt the costume after he had 
instructed them to wear it ? Did he not recall his 
agent for trying to make war on Cuba, after he 
sent him for the purpose ? Did he not encourage 
the violation of the neutrality laws, and then 
threaten punishment on the offenders ? Did he not 
refuse Capt. Gibson justice after he had informed 



REVIEW. 93 

the Dutcli he should have it? Did he not negoti- 
ate for guano in the Gallip^^gos Islands, and then 
find there was none there ? Did he not make a 
treaty with Santa Dominica, and then keep the 
same treaty from the Senate ? Did he not buy a 
desert of Mexico, through which to run a railroad, 
and pay ten millions of the people's money, and 
then find no route for a road upon it? The Sand- 
wich Islands and the Netherlands present the same 
vacillation. 

Now look at home, and what has been the sole 
mission but to weaken the integrity of the Union, 
to upset the Missouri compromise and create agi- 
tation and strife, and to destroy the American party 
because it rebuked his administration, and exposed 
his want of capacity and power to manage Ameri- 
can affairs as became their high name, and because 
it rejected the Romish hierarchy, which, de facto, 
was the governing power of the country ! 

It was to put down the American party, there- 
fore, that Mr. Pierce enlisted for Mr. "Wise's elec- 
tion in Virginia, and compelled the patronage of 
the government and the executive force at Wash- 
ington to aid in its consummation. 

In February, 1854, the Sardinian government 



94 REVIEW. 

sent a ship-load of criminals, fresh from dungeons 
in Genoa, to New York city. The mayor of that 
city very properly applied for instructions at 
Washington, as to the mode of disposing of them. 
And how was it done, do you think, Americarfs ? 
By directing the district attorney to receive them 
as exiles ! The spoils of the New York custom- 
house had far greater interest for Mr. Pierce's 
government than the receiving of foreign criminals 
on our shores. 

Unscrupulous, reckless spoilsmen at home, with 
disciples of Lopez, English socialists, German 
money- changing Jews, and French and American 
buccaneers, made up the host which was to tear from 
us our well-earned reputation, and rob us before 
mankind of our national renown. 



CHAPTER III. 

THIRD YEAR OF FIERCE' S ADmNISTRATION. 

At a certain crisis in England's history, the 
French, under the idea that they had become weak 
in gold, were chary about terms of peace. Mr. 
Pitt determined upon a loan to remove the fallacy, 
and in less than fifteen hours and twenty minutes, 
the subscription to a sum of eighteen millions was 
completed. This was called the loyalty loan, be- 
cause it vindicated the people's integrity to their 
government. So, the American people were no 
sooner convinced that their integrity and honor had 
been compromised by Franklin Pierce's administra- 
tion in the eyes of all mankind, than they rose in 
the fall elections, and signally rebuked him. 

The judicial murders of Manuel Pinto and Fran- 
cisco Estrampes, by the order of the Consul Gen- 
eral of Cuba, in April, 1855, excited the indigna- 
tion of this people. Estrampes was a naturalized 
citizen, and these men had every reason to believe 



96 REVIEW. 

Mr. Pierce cordially sympatliized with their con- 
spiracy for liberty in Cuba. And there is the most 
indubitable proof that he did. The understanding 
was that those champions for Cuban liberty were 
first to strike the blow, then Mr. Pierce was to 
bring the government of the United States to their 
aid. It was all arranged, with Pierce's full knowl- 
edge, that Gen. Quitman was to take the command, 
and funds were contributed for that purpose. And 
therefore it was that he sent a secret spy to Cuba 
in 1855, to look into matters there, and ascertain 
from their resources, &c., the ability of these con- 
spirators to sustain themselves. This spy became 
on intimate terms with Gen. Pinto, a wealthy Span- 
iard, and by their joint agency they formed a plan 
by Avhich they searched into the archives of the 
Consul General's department, and there found a 
secret treaty. This treaty contained a guarantee 
of Cuba to Spain by England and France ; and at 
once proved the folly and danger of any warlike 
attempt on the part of the conspirators there, or 
the government of the United States. 

A large sum of money had been audited by the 
agent of Mr. Pierce, for this Cuban expedition ; 
but when he returned and reported to the Presi- 



REVIEW. 97 

dent that the democrats of Cuba never could make 
the first effort for liberty, Mr. Pierce desisted from 
the design. The subsequent letters which passed 
between the American spy and Pinto were found 
upon his person, and, upon this evidence alone, 
Pinto and Estrampes were garroted ! 

Commodore Macauley, on this account, was 
subsequently received by Gen. Concha with marked 
consideration. The want of administrative ability 
had now become the subject of universal complaint. 
The post office department was conspicuously so, 
by making the sale of letters and papers an item 
of revenue ; and it is a notorious fact that bank- 
bills, checks, and insurance policies, were sold in 
piles of letters to paper-mills at the North. A 
Connecticut mill bought two thousand of these let- 
ters, by which all these facts were brought to light. 
In other places there were systematic thefts com- 
mitted on mail matter, while political heresy was 
always good cause for stopping channels of informa- 
tion which might affect the welfjire of the party in 
power. 

Think of this, Americans, that private letters, 
misguided by bad management of the department 
at Washington, instead of being returned to the 
9 



98 KEVIEW. 

general post-office and advertised according to law, 
were sold, in indiscriminate lumber heaps, to paper 
makers ! 

There has been a singular incongruity in Mr. 
Pierce's proclivities for war ; for we all remember, 
when an opportunity was offered him in Mexico to 
manifest an active love for it, he backed out. 
Nevertheless, the hallucination still existed that it 
was his military renown that made him President, 
as it had done Jackson, Harrison, and Taylor ; and, 
to insure his continuance another four years, he 
must get the American people into a general fight, 
as Greytown was altogether too bloodless a victory 
for the emergency. So, anything for noise and 
confusion, to divert the minds of the people from 
the true state of their case. 

The sound dues from Denmark was the next 
belligerent demonstration. He could not stand fire 
for Cuba, because France and England were both 
in his way there. So he bullied Denmark, at a time 
when the king was alienated from his government, 
and their internal affairs were all distracted. And 
for what ? Why, only for a few hundred dollars ! 
For this he was ready to involve the country in war, 
in comparison with the cost of which, all the dues 



REVIEW. 99 

in the next fifty years would have been but a 
trifle. 

All Europe was paying these dues long before 
we existed as a nation. Denmark raised the light- 
houses and set up the beacons, and why Avas it so 
suddenly inconsistent with our national honor to 
pay the paltry tax ? We have scarcely commerce 
enough in the Baltic to talk about, much less quar- 
rel about. Washington, JeiTerson, Madison, and 
Jackson, regarded these dues as lawful, and guaran- 
teed them to Denmark by treaty. 

Now, Americans, mark the result of this new- 
fledged warlike difficulty. The treaty was about 
to expire, and, instead of a proclamation of war, 
Mr. Pierce sends forth a circular letter to the 
American merchantmen to pay the dues, but to pay 
them under protest ! Thus there has been in every 
act an indication of savage delight at the prospect 
of war, but always, fortunately, with some balk to 
the gross atrocity. 

The next serious foreign question was that aris- 
ing from the enlistment of Americans for the Brit- 
ish service in the Crimea. In November, 1855, 
the Albion of New York, the British organ, 
said this proceeding ''had the sanction of Mr. 



100 REVIEW. 

Marcy, Secretary of State/' The administration 
organ, in commenting on this, did not deny the fact, 
which was then regarded tantamount to an acknowl- 
edgment. A week after the British proclamation 
of 15th of March, 1855, was received here, the 
district attorney of New York was applied to by 
Mr. McDonald, the British consul, for permission 
to establish an office in Pearl-street, in that city, 
to enlist men to send to Halifax to join the foreign 
legion at Nova Scotia. The office was already 
open, when the application was made to Mr. 
McKeon, district attorney, but, being rejected by 
him, it was closed. The German papers also 
advertised for recruits. The instructions given in 
the cases of Spain, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, 
regarding American citizens, were now announced 
to British agents, by the district attorney. But, 
in defiance of this, another house was opened in 
Chatham-street, New York, and the enlistment 
went on with as much activity as if all the author- 
ities at Washington were dead. 

In Philadelphia, too. Hertz was in the same 
business ; and advertisements, near Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, called for mechanics and machinists for 
the same object. These facts were made known by 



REVIEW. 101 

families whose husbands and fathers had been en- 
ticed away. With the entire knowledge of the 
fact that enlistments were being made in New 
York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Boston, every 
day, under British employes, who paid these men 
to violate the laws of the country, the administra- 
tion purposely blinded itself to the sight. 

Mr. Buchanan was about to leave for home, 
having failed in the Ostend business and in the 
settlement of the Central American difficulties, 
when this new perplexity was added to his busi- 
ness negotiations. Lord Palmers ton, upon being 
notified, stated that he had ordered the recruitino; 
to be stopped, both in the United States and the 
British Provinces, and that the infraction of 
our laws had been innocently made. When this 
explanation reached us, what was the administra- 
tion about, do you think ? It was hard at work, 
Americans, to get up a ground of dispute with 
England, by raking together in a heap all her 
sins of omission and commission. ' Had Mr. Pierce 
done his duty, there would have been no occasion 
for any trouble whatever. 

But this would not have suited the President's 

purpose, nor subserved his political aspirations. 
9# 



102 REVIEW. 

When England received this despatch in due 
form, she was naturally startled. Seeing, as she 
had, so many flagrant acts upon the honor of the 
country passed by, she considered her concession 
most amicable and just. 

To bring up Central America, the Dominica 
quarrel, consuls' conduct, and general matters, 
all at once, was enough to try her temper ; and 
she directed her fleet to take position in the 
West India seas. But, as for that, what cared 
Americans ? With our free covenant of progress,- 
she might as well have attempted to draw Niaga- 
ra's waters into her rural districts, as to have ter- 
rified us. 

No power, success, or triumph, no badly-admin- 
istered government here, can make us forget that 
the American Union is the only fortress in which 
popular liberty can be defended ; and that here, 
where the land is baptized in the blood of mar- 
tyred kinsmen, it was born. 

Mr. Crampton, the British minister at Wash- 
ington, made a mistake in studying American 
politics through Mr. Pierce's policy, and so far 
forgot himself as to persist in violating our laws 
in the question of enlistment, as was clearly 



REVIEW. 103 

proved, in the trial of Hertz and others, at Phila- 
delphia, He lost sight of the fact that ambas- 
sadors '' are bound to respect the laws and cus- 
toms of the country they are in," and if they 
refuse can be dismissed. And he so far departed 
from his sphere of duty as to become personally 
disrespectful and obnoxious to the national exec- 
utive. 

Had Pierce's government then acted independ- 
ently, and instantly dismissed Crampton, after 
the English government (with a full knowledge 
of the facts) failed to recall him, the whole Ameri- 
can people would have justified him. Instead of 
which, it vacillated and threatened in order to 
make an excitement for the Cincinnati Conven- 
tion, and only dismissed him a few days before. 
It is more than probable that, but for that Cincin- 
nati Convention, Mr. Crampton, with all his per- 
sonal indignities, might still have been in Wash- 
ington. 

In the autumn of 1855 American citizens 
were murdered at Nicaragua, en route to Califor- 
nia. It was a most violent case. A mother and 
child were killed in the cabin of an American 
steamer, from New York, while on the lake. Ap- 



104 REVIEW. '. 

plication was made at Washington for power to 
bring t»Iic offenders to punishment, and obtain in- 
demnity for the loss of property then sustained. 
Did the administration promptly demand this re- 
dress? No. Mr. Marcy's letter of the eighth of 
November, 1855, said '' Nicaragua had no respons- 
ible government," and was in a "miserable con- 
dition.'' That, therefore, was the excuse for 
withholding that protection to American citizens 
pledged in the inaugural and Koszta letter. But, 
when Nicaragua was in a better condition, was the 
case laid before her government for satisfaction to 
Americans? It was not, because the original 
refusal was devoid of heartiness, and, as every- 
body knew, a mere quibble. With just as much 
reason, and no more, Mr. Parker II. French, an 
American citizen, was refused at Washington, 
when he presented himself as the accredited am- 
bassador from Nicaragua, in the present year, 
while Padre Vijil, a foreign Romish priest, was 
accepted, a few weeks later, from the same gov- 
ernment. 

Now, Americans, the same objections which 
forbade the rejection of the first ambassador (had ■ 
they been tenable) would have prevented the 



REVIEW. 105 

acknowledgment of the last. The government of 
Nicaragua underwent no change between the 
periods of sending Mr. French and Padre Vijil. 
If it merited a representative at Washington at 
all, it did so when French was sent there. But 
there was a motive underlying that matter, which 
the American people now understand. The Cin- 
cinnati Convention was at hand, the independence 
of Nicaragua became popular, the people sympa- 
thized with the noble Walker and the gallant 
American legion who had assisted that govern- 
ment to democratic liberty, and the Romish priest- 
hood in the United States, moreover, must still 
be propitiated, and hence the recognition of Nica- 
< ragua's independence. Take away the effort for 
renomination which Mr. Pierce was then making ; 
take away the fact that the Romish hierarchy 
favored the reception of one of the Pope's agents, 
and who believes that act of Mr. Pierce would 
ever have been consummated ? 

For that nomination, too, he wanted a difficulty 
with Spain ; for that, he cannonaded Greytown ; 
for that, he made a little fuss with Holland, and 
would have embroiled us in war with England, on 
a point of honor. In this self-aggrandizement, he 



106 REVIEW. 

purchased the votes of Congress to extend the 
area of bondage, broke down the Missouri com- 
promise, and embittered the North against the 
South by attempting to introduce slavery into 
Kansas by fraud and bloodshed. 

0, Americans, the nation is perishing for want 
of a ruler ! We have no one to whom we can 
now look to arrest oppression and crime, by inter- 
posing the law. The whole policy of Franklin 
Pierce has been to dodge the responsibility of the 
Kansas difficulty, after he got the people into civil 
war. It was his infidelity to his high and holy 
trusts that has disturbed the peace and tranquillity 
in which Millard Fillmore left the executive of the 
country. Had Pierce been true to the principles 
which elected him, that peace would still pre- 
vail. Think, Americans, of your fellow-citizens 
murdered, your women driven to frenzy, their 
husbands and fathers chained, their houses burned 
to ashes, because Franklin Pierce, the President 
of the United States, did not choose to stop the 
invasion when it first began ! He knew it all, but 
could not spare the sacrifice of life and property 
in sight of the Cincinnati Convention ! Nothing 
but this pusillanimous conduct on the part of your 



REVIEW. 107 

President, Americans, has perilled the safety of 
the Union for the fourth time, under the great 
covenant which makes us one people. 

Forty years ago, the American people were in- 
dignant that Mr. Madison should let the capital 
be burned; later still, they condemned the disaster 
Van Bur en brought upon the country, the treach- 
ery of Tyler, and the savage ferocity of Polk, in 
putting the gallant Taylor, with his little band of 
heroes, before twenty thousand Mexicans, to be cut 
to pieces. But what were all those acts, in com- 
parison with these of Franklin Pierce ? 

Let the desolation of homes and hearths, of 
forfeited life and hopes, in Kansas, answer ! It is 
the administration of Mr. Pierce that has caused 
" moral treason," " martial law,'' and '' civil 
war," in Kansas, since the first fraudulent Kansas 
election, Franklin Pierce, as President of the 
United States, was the supreme law-officer over 
that territory ; and it was his imperious duty to have 
provided a new legislature, which would have ex- 
pressed the free will of the real settlers of Kansas, 
which would have satisfied the North and the South, 
and prevented the subsequent effusion of blood. 
Instead of which, he attempted to sustain the 



108 REVIEW. 

fraudulent legislature, and appointed territorial 
judges who cooperated with the military against the 
manifest wishes of the majority of the people. 
This was all done to obtain votes in the Cincinnati 
Convention, recklessly disregardful of public indig- 
nation in all sections, so long as he got the sanction 
of a faction of designing men and unscrupulous 
demagogues. ^^~- — 

Governor Reeder's testimony, under oath, tells 
a tale which sickens every true American heart. 
Mr. Pierce appointed Eeeder to please one set of 
political friends, and dismissed him to please an- 
other. He said to Reeder that he cordially ap- 
proved of his whole course in Kansas, but that 
Atchison, of Missouri, was inexorable in requiring 
that he, Reeder, should be removed. Reeder was 
then supplicated by Pierce to resign ; and when 
this failed, he sought to bribe him by offering him 
the mission to China, or in some other way advan- 
cing the private interests of Reeder. Unable by 
any dishonorable proposition to induce Reeder to 
resign, Mr. Pierce then said he should remove him, 
not on account of dereliction from duty, but for 
land speculations ! This was the contemptible sub- 
terfuge, Americans, of the President of the United 



REVIEW. 109 

States towards a subordinate with whom he ex- 
pressed himself entirely satisfied, but who, by his 
own acknowledgments, he was obliged to remove, 
to please Atchison, of Missouri ! And mark the 
fact, in the sworn testimony of Reeder, that the 
resort to land speculations as the reason for his 
removal was done after the avowal of Pierce, in a 
previous interview, that he saw nothing reprehen- 
sible in that act, whatever ! 

For the first time in our history, has the mili- 
tary of the country been used to justify the bar- 
barity of its citizens ; and, for the honor of human- 
ity, w^e pray to Heaven it may be the last. 

Governor Shannon, of Ohio, was next sent to 
Kansas, who, in a short time, was also found not \ 
to answer the policy of the administration, which j 
is to force slavery on Kansas, against the wishes 
of the majority of the people. 

Why did not Mr. Pierce ask Congress for means 
to put down these violators of law in Kansas ? He 
countenanced the brutality for seven or eight 
months, purposely to obtain votes at Cincinnati in 
the June convention. 

And now, Americans, note this solemn fact, that 
Mr. Pierce has not only perilled the Union, but he 
10 



110 REVIEW. 

has inflicted a wound upon the honor of the South, 
in the repeal of the Missouri compromise. They 
never elected Pierce to do any such thing. They 
never asked or desired that the pledges and com- 
promises for the peace of this Union should be 
touched. And, had the South supposed it pos- 
sible, Franklin Pierce could no more have received 
its electoral vote, than Benedict Arnold could have 
been called to Washington's place after his treason. 

Let Americans remember that this act was 
begun and consummated by a Northern President. 
Forbid it, Heaven, that a man shall come after 
Franklin Pierce who adopts and retains his views 
and policy towards Kansas ! 

Some may inq^uire. Can there be such a man ? 
We tell you yes, and he is James Buchanan, of 
Pennsylvania. There is therefore a deep, earnest, 
general call, from the independent masses of this 
people, for change — moral reform, political reform, 
official honesty, in lieu of official availability ! 
We have now but one man before us, as a candi- 
date for the Presidency, who clings to the great, 
fundamental principle of the Union, and is honest- 
ly before the people upon the dignity of the con- 
stitution ; a man of opinion, of enlarged views. 



REVIEW. Ill 

able to protect the rights of all, because he re- 
spects the will of the majority, and has an undy- 
ing love for the Union of these States, and the 
imperishable glory of the American name. This 
man is Millard Fillmore, of New York. 

Do you ask, Americans, where is the demonstra- 
tion that the people, ]Sk)rth and South, reject the 
policy of this administration ? We jDoint you to 
the ballot-box, which, in the language of Erastus 
Brooks, of New York, is '' worth fighting for, and 
worth dying for.'' The popular majority which 
elected Pierce was more than sixty-three thousand, 
and every state but four in the entire Union cast 
its vote for him. Of these, two were Northern 
and two were Southern States. In the first year 
of his administration, he was in a popular minority 
of sixty-seven thousand. In the second year, it 
had increased to two hundred and twenty-six 
thousand. In the third year, it had reached three 
hundred and three thousand, nine hundred and 
twenty-seven votes ! With this terrible reaction 
and condemnation by the American people, Pierce, 
therefore, was deficient for re -nomination three 
hundred and sixty-seven thousand, and in a minor- 
ity of three hundred thousand ! 



112 REVIEW. 

In this condition of things, Mr. James Buchanan 
was put upon Pierce's platform, after endorsing the 
entire policy of Pierce's administration, and pledg- 
ing himself, if elected, to keep it in full force the 
next four years. The American people, who 
have already repudiated it, by the unmistakable 
verdict of three hundred thousand votes, will 
have another opportunity, in the November elec- 
tions, to administer a last rebuke, by refusing to 
accept Mr. Pierce's succession in the selection of 
Mr. James Buchanan. Thank Heaven, the Ameri- 
can people can inflict a blow, through their free 
constitution, in a single day, wdiich the monarchies 
of all Europe could not do in a century ! 

The official conduct of President Pierce in ref- 
erence to the ' ' Naval Ketiring Board ' ' is dis- 
cussed, at length, in another chapter of this work. 
It is well to remind the people, however, that, of 
all the acts which merit condemnation, and out- 
rage the feelings of American men, that, which 
has wounded the honor of and inflicted disgrace and 
poverty upon the gallant men of the navy, and 
their suffering families, is one of the most atro- 
cious. More than five hundred American families 
have been most seriously injured by this unparalleled 



REVIEW. 113 

tyranny of Franklin Pierce and Secretary Dobbin. 
Not only have they deprived the country of the 
services of men when they were eminently needed, 
to exalt our stars and stripes ; not only have 
they aspersed the fair fame of these men, by con- 
demning them, in violation of law, and without 
any form of trial — a right guaranteed by the 
constitution to the most blood-stained criminal in 
the land ; but by that act the administration 
have deprived these men of the advantages of 
any other honorable calling. Do you ask how? 
We answer, has it not attached opprobrium to 
these officers as citizens, by disrating or dismiss- 
ing them ? Does not the fact itself imply moral, 
physical, or mental incompetency, in the public 
judgment ? If these officers apply for employment 
in the merchant service, for example, what is the 
result ? The insurance companies refuse to grant 
a policy to a ship in their command, because of 
this unjust sentence by the government. The edu- 
cation of these men compelled them to look to the 
profession as a life service, and hence the difficulty 
of attempting to compete with the civil employ- 
ments of our enterprising business men. Athens 
starved her best men, and Rome neglected hers ; 
10* 



114 KEVIEW. 

and this led to the ruin of those republics. But 
England votes lands, and the Queen bestows fine 
salaries, upon her military men. And in France, 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, despotisms as they 
are, there is marked liberality towards this arm of 
the public service. 

It shocks the common sense of the people to see 
these freemen, who have defended our fortress of 
liberty on every sea and in every clime, ruthlessly 
thrust aside by an incompetent President, insti- 
gated by unprincipled demagogues. 

The veto power, only intended by the constitu- 
tion to be used with extreme delicacy and caution, 
and to prevent hasty or indiscreet legislation, 
which might defeat the free will of the people, 
has been used by Franklin Pierce with the same 
arrogant self-conceit that is exercised by the Eo- 
man pontiff. He has abused this high prerogative 
of the President, and trampled down the rights 
and privileges of the people with the audacious 
impudence of a Nero. 

The French Spoliation bill, which passed Con- 
gress in 1855, shared the unhallowed fate of the 
lunatic bill, made for that unfortunate class of our 
fellow-beings. There never were claims upon earth 



REVIEW. 115 

founded more in justice than those connected with 
the French Spoliation bill ; and when, after years 
of toil on the part of the petitioners for redress, Con- 
gress at last vindicated the nation's honor, it was 
crushed by the reckless action of Franklin Pierce. 

The Collins line of steamers, too, the pride of 
every honest American, shared the same fate; 
and, though the appropriation was afterwards 
made in spite of the executive veto, it remained 
in its power still to give the notice for discontinu- 
ing the contract. That policy of Pierce's govern- 
ment, to crush out American enterprise, and give 
foreigners the monopoly of the seas, as well as upon 
the soil of our country, has been steadily pursued 
towards the Collins steamers, until the blow has 
finally been struck by Congress, and the notice to 
stop the government assistance has been given. 

As a nation we are daily becoming more 
formidable to foreign powers, and the United 
States of America is the only country whose mari- 
time increase can compete successfully with that of 
Great Britain. Now, more than ever before, every 
instinct of national pride and patriotism demanded 
that these American steamers should have been 
retained and cherished, as the only line that can 



116 REVIEW. 

offer successful competition to the Cunard line of 
Englisli steamers. 

Did the revenues of the government compel the 
withholding of this money from American industry 
and enterprise ? Did public sentiment oppose this 
effort which has elevated our national capabilities 
over the world ? No ; it was in defiance of the 
will and wishes of the majority of the American 
people, that narrow-minded, designing men have 
been found to conspire with Franklin Pierce in the 
attempted destruction of our beautiful steamers. 
Had that Collins line existed in the war of 1812, 
the waters of our lakes and ocean would have re- 
mained private waters ; and the battles of Niagara, 
Chippewa, and New Orleans, would never have 
been fought upon American soil. 

Thus, in war or peace, these steamers should be 
made part and parcel of ourselves ; — protected for 
the national benefit in time of peace, and secur- 
ing our country from the danger of land operations 
in time of war. 

0, Americans, we want a man to put down all 
this ; — a man with a whole American heart, who 
loves his country everywhere ; who loves the peo- 
ple and all their interests, and will protect, defend. 



REVIEW. 117 

and cherish their commerce, their shipping, their 
manufactures, their mechanics, and glory only in 
their nationality. That man is Millard Fillmore ! 
We have all the materials and means for building 
our own ships, and developing our own resources. 
We can cast our own cannon, make our own rifles, 
bayonets, and knives ; and we have American men 
to do the work, in lieu of foreign workmen, whom 
Pierce has harbored, to take it out of American 
hands, for the sake of keeping the foreign vote, and 
favoring the Romish hierarchy. 

While, too, Pierce's administration has been 
stopping the commerce of the Mississippi and the 
lakes of the north-west, by refusing to let the people 
have their own money to remove the difficult and 
dangerous impediments, the funds of the treasury 
have been squandered in purchasing pictures to 
adorn a committee-room connected with public 
buildings at Washington, at a cost to the people's 
pockets of three thousand six hundred dollars, and 
a marble mantel at five hundred dollars for the same 
sumptuous apartment. 

Americans, you cannot afford this ! You cannot 
afford to tax yourselves and your children to please 
the taste merely of a capricious executive. You 



118 REVIEW. 

foot these bills, remember ; and you have a right 
to know the advantage of these things. The cost 
of the machinery in putting up the public buildings 
at Washington, under Franklin Pierce's foreign 
administration, has been ascertained, by the investi- 
gation of a committee of Congress, to have nearly 
equalled the cost of all the buildings ! Every 
house-builder in America knows this is all wrong. 
Money has been expended in transporting bricks 
from New York and Philadelphia to Washington, 
at thirteen dollars a thousand, and then being so 
small as to take thirteen hundred to make a thou- 
sand ! 

Under Millard Fillmore's administration, all the 
jobs upon public buildings were done under honest, 
bona fide contracts. But Pierce abandoned the old 
contract system, and has employed mechanics and 
laborers by the day, in the post-office and capitol 
extensions. Now, w^hat is the result of having men 
dress marble and brick by the day ? Why, they 
will contrive to dress it as long as a rough surface 
remains, no matter whether it is ever intended 
to be seen or not. So the rear wall of the post- 
office, which never can be seen by the public at all, 
is finished in a more costly manner than any public 



REVIEW. 119 

building in the United States, and only because 
it has given encouragement to foreign over Ameri- 
can mechanics. 

In 1852, Walter, the architect of the capitol 
under Mr. Fillmore, saw the slowness with which 
men worked when their own interest was advanced 
thereby, and made a contract with Mr. Emory, the 
most experienced granite -cutter in Washington, to 
furnish it all at one fifth less than it could be done 
by the day's work. But, in the face of experience, 
and a perfect knowledge of the fact that the dic- 
tates of enlightened public economy demanded this 
policy to be retained, Capt. Meigs, the Pierce 
employe, acting out the principle of extravagance 
and folly pursued by the administration, returns to 
the day-wages system, and thus has caused more 
money to be expended on the back of the post-office, 
never to be seen, than on the front of the capitol 
of the United States! 

Hon. Edward Ball, of Ohio, in the month of 
May, 1856, inquired into the prodigal wasteful- 
ness of the people's money on the part of the em- 
ployes of the administration of Franklin Pierce. 
By the introduction of a series of resolutions, the 
enormous sums expended upon the enlargement of 



120 ■ REVIEW. 

the capitol were sought to be ascertained. The ad- 
herents of the President were greatly alarmed, and 
endeavored to suppress all information on the sub- 
ject. But frauds of the most villanous nature had 
been discovered, and were exposed by the chairman 
of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. 
In the single contract made with Beals and Dixon, 
the treasury had been robbed of one hundred 
thousand dollars. This was perpetrated wilfully, 
because Mr. J. B. Emery, of Baltimore, with all 
the securities and obligations required by the stip- 
ulations of the " proposals," offered to do the cor- 
nice-work at twenty-four dollars and seventy-five 
cents per foot, while Beals and Dixon charged 
thirty-nine dollars per foot. The former gentle- 
man engaged to do the '* architraves over antes'* 
at nine dollars per foot ; but the work was given — 
no doubt for political purposes — to Messrs. Beals 
and Dixon to do at the monstrous charge of nine- 
teen dollars per foot ! For capitals of columns 
Beals and Dixon charged nine hundred dollars, 
Mr. Emery offering to do the same work, according 
to '' advertisement" {sham advertisement), at four 
hundred dollars each column ! Another enormous 
disparity was exhibited in the bid on capitals of 



REVIEW. 121 

antes ; Beals and Dixon charging two hundred 
and forty dollars, Mr. Emery asking only fifty- 
eight dollars ! And so on, through the catalogue 
of iniquity. 

The corruption existing in the department hav- 
ing these matters in charge was also made mani- 
fest. By garbling the figures, and by palpable 
miscalculations, it was ascertained that the "de- 
partment " made it appear as though Mr. Emery's 
bid had amounted to three hundred and forty-one 
thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars, 
whereas, in fact, it was only twenty-five thousand 
eight hundred and ninety-five dollars. 

By the proper mode of computation — that is to 
say, according to the rules of the arithmetics used in 
our American schools — Mr. Emery had offered to 
do the work on two thousand five hundred feet of 
rough stone, six hundred and thirteen feet each, 
for the sum of one thousand three hundred and 
seventy-five dollars; but the foreigners employed 
in the Treasury Department, according to the rules 
of their European method of computation, made 
it appear that Mr. Emery's charge was seventy- 
one thousand and seventy-five dollars, or nearly 
forty dollars per foot. The American arithmeti- 
11 



122 REVIEW. 

cians make the sixteen thousand feet of work for 
which Mr. Emery bid amount to eight thousand 
eight hundred dollars ; but the foreign clerks of the 
Treasury Department of Franklin Pierce figure it 
up to two hundred and forty-four thousand four 
hundred and eighty dollars. This was done through 
ignorance of the common rules of the American 
arithmetic, or for the purpose of keeping Mr. 
Emery out of the contract, and thus securing it 
to the government pets, Messrs. Beals and Dixon. 

Thus the people's money is used to retain the 
reins of government, in order that a perpetual 
handling of the treasury's funds may be indulged. 
The people's money is used to secure the power of 
robbing the people, year after year. It was not so 
under the administration of Millard Fillmore. 

But, in addition to the crime of robbery, that of 
a violation of the United States law, in reference 
to the plan of construction of the capitol extension, 
is chargeable upon the Treasury Department of 
the present administration. 

Here is the law. '' For the continuation of the 
Treasury building, three hundred thousand dollars, 
to be expended under the direction of the Presi- 
dent of the United States, according to the plan 



REVIEW. 123 

proposed by Thomas U. Walter, architect, and 
approved of by the Committees of the Senate 
and House of Representatives on Buildings and 
Grounds, at the last session of Congress/' Now, 
what regard have the men at Washington paid to 
this statute? Not the least. What are they, 
then, but outlaws — a pack of outlaws in the 
Treasury Department of the United States ? Mr. 
Walter's plan has been changed by the superin- 
tendent and architect having the extension in 
charge. They have allowed their fancies to run 
riot, and all their dreams of ' ' palace halls ' ' are 
being realized at the expense of the American 
people, who elevated Mr. Pierce to the Presidency, 
and at the expense of some who had no hand in 
that sad affair. The plain front originally designed, 
and the economical plan proposed, under Mr. Fill- 
more's administration (the idea of the extension 
having originated in his term of office), have been 
totally abandoned, and a front of Italian " ginger- 
bread-work" substituted instead of Mr. Walter's 
design. The elaborate and costly style substituted 
is of no consequence to Mr. Pierce ; but the people 
will be greater dupes than we take them to be, if 
they tacitly submit to the robbery of their treasury 



124 REVIEW. 

for the purpose of pampering the pets of the ex- 
ecutive. Fifty thousand dollars, or one hundred 
thousand dollars, are mere bagatelles to the unscru- 
pulous Pierce ; and he does not hesitate to sanction 
the expenditure of such paltry sums, for a single 
moment, if the votes of the influential contractors 
can be secured to perpetuate the so-called demo- 
cratic dynasty. American democrats, however, 
will object to the perpetuity of the foreign democ- 
racy, on this principle of wasteful extravagance. 
During the Fillmore administration the work of 
the Capitol extension was commenced, under the 
direction of the Department of the Interior 
(where it properly belongs), according to the plans 
of Mr. Walter ; but Mr. Pierce, to suit his own 
personal purposes, took the control of the work 
from the Secretary of the Interior, and placed 
it in the hands of the Secretary of War ; and this 
last officer at once appointed a military officer, 
the present superintendent, over Mr. Walter, with 
power to change the plan. Now, Mr. Walter is 
acknowledged to be the best civil architect in the 
United States ; but the Pierce managers, having in 
view the pampering of their own partisans, have 
seen fit to allow their man. Captain Meigs, to do 



REVIEW. 125 

pretty much as he pleases in the way of nonsensi- 
cal decorations and extravagant adornments. No 
matter : the people, who placed Franklin Pierce in 
power, foot the^ bills. American mechanics and 
working-men will ''pay the piper," while they 
are rendered less able to do so by the admission 
of the cheap pauper laborers of Europe, duty free, 
into the American labor market. The difference 
of a million of dollars, between the proposed cost 
of the Capitol extension, originally designed un- 
der Mr. Fillmore's administration, and that substi- 
tuted by Pierce, is an item of no moment. The 
people will be ' ' de7noc7^ats ; ' ' and as they are will- 
ing to pay for the glorious privilege of mingling 
with the Irish Catholics and the foreign demo- 
crats, instead of being American democrats, why, 
let them go on until they are tired of the drain 
upon their pockets. 

But the cause of President Pierce's disregard 
of cost is evidenced in his sanction of the em- 
ployment of any number of German and Italian 
sculptors, busily engaged in the manufacture of 
statuary, designed for the pediment of the two 
wings of the extension. These graven images are 
represented to be the liknesses of nothing in the 
11* 



126 ' REVIEW. 

heavens above or the earth beneath, — excepting 
one of them, which is a model of a German work- 
ing-man's wife, and is passed off as the Goddess of 
Liberty. This Italian and German toggery has 
been procured at an immense cost ; but American 
working-men will pay for it, by taxation. Foreign 
sculptors are the only ones employed under Mr. 
Pierce's administration, but American mechanics 
are taxed to pay for the work of these Germans 
and Italians. 

Is this country worthy to be called American ? 
Is there any sense or signification in the term 
America or Americans ? Why not call it Ger- 
many, or Ireland? How many miserable, de- 
luded American mechanics there are, who voted for 
Franklin Pierce, who would now be glad to be em- 
ployed on the work of the Capitol extension ! But 
Germans and Italians must be propitiated, for the 
sake of their votes, and Americans may starve ! 

Is it not true that the people should teach their 
representatives that they are not sent to Congress 
to vote appropriations of their money, from year 
to year, to be used by Franklin Pierce, or any 
other President, without limitation or discrimina- 
tion ? 



REVIEW. 127 

Pierce's administration came into power pledged 
to preserve peace, by keeping down all causes of 
agitation among the people, — pledged to reform all 
useless abuses, and expenditures of their money ; 
instead of which, he has run up the expenses of 
the nation from fifty to eighty millions per an- 
num, and kept down the internal commercial 
interests of the country by refusing the improve- 
ments which the people demanded. He has inter- 
fered with the domestic peace of the nation, and 
forced us into all the horrors of civil war. He 
has deceived, cheated, betrayed the people, at 
home and abroad. And he has done more to 
fasten the despotism of the Pope's political church 
upon the American people than the monarchs of 
Catholic France, Catholic Austria, and Catholic 
Spain, ever did together. 

He, graciously received the Pope's Nuncio, sent 
hj him to enforce his claims to property of Amer- 
ican citizens, and has cultivated the closest inti- 
macy with this foreign despot, and with those 
aliens among us whom he knew, in virtue of their 
imperishable allegiance to the Pope, cannot, 
whether gone through the forms of naturalization 
or not, ever become American citizens. The day 



128 REVIEW. 

a bishop or priest of Eome renounces allegiance 
to the Pope of Rome, that day he forfeits his 
right to be a priest or bishop, and cannot ad- 
minister a sacrament, or exercise a single preroga- 
tive, in the Eoman Catholic Church. Franklin 
Pierce knows, but does not care for this. He knows 
that Bishop Hughes sold his party the foreign 
Catholic vote, which elected him to the Presidency ; 
and the future annalist will do Pierce the justice 
to record the fact that, while his administration 
is distinguished but for two original measures, the 
burning of Greytown and the court costume order, 
he has been singularly grateful for his elevation 
to the papal despot, rather than to the free will of 
the American people. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOURTH YEAR OF PIERCE' S ADMINISTRATION. 

When George the Third, of England, undertook 
to subdue the American colonies in 1769, and 
make them bow to the supremacy of Parliament, 
he sent regiments of troops to Boston, and had 
fourteen war-vessels pointing their broadsides on 
the town, to enable his commissioners to extort 
its unjust taxation ; and, the more effectually to 
frighten the people into submission, the king's 
sentries paraded the streets, and compelled the 
people to have a permit from these red-coats to go 
to theip business places. 

So, Franklin Pierce has sought, by a similar 
policy, to terrify the American people now, by 
dealing with them as a nation of serfs. The only 
principle of action to which he has been constant 
has been that which intermeddled with the federal 
and state elections. For this he violated all the 
compromises of the constitution. For this he fra- 



130 REVIEW. 

ternized political apostates of all parties and 
creeds. For this he increased offices and salaries 
in the country, and squandered the money belong- 
ing to the people, to multiply agents for elections 
in all the states. For this he perverted most 
shamefully the intent of the law, and turned out 
of the navy two hundred and one officers, without 
regard to their service or character, to make place 
for partisans and favorites. For this he has kept 
the nation two years out of a great national road 
to the Pacific, and compelled the people to pay 
for useless surveys of routes, in order to dodge the 
issue of committing himself to either route. 

Americans, behold your country ! Indian war 
rages. California, New Mexico, and Oregon, are 
the scenes of bloody action now, and the soil of 
Kansas imbrued with fratricidal gore ! 

Mormons are coming into the nation by thirty 
and forty thousand a year, and from Mr. Pierce's 
conduct in Utah we shall soon have that state, 
which has overturned all religious and civil au- 
thority, and outraged decency and morals, asking 
admission into our Protestant Union as a Mormon 
state ! Nothing but the Kansas excitement will 
deprive Franklin Pierce of the glory of consum- 



REVIEW. 131 

mating that act. Kansas excitement ! Yes, 
Americans, it is more than civil strife. It is a 
dangerous presentiment that this Union may be 
dissolved. 0, my countrymen ! pause and con- 
sider for one moment the awful responsibility 
which now devolves upon you ! Franklin Pierce 
has outraged this people ; and his policy, to which 
his successor is committed, threatens to split the 
Union into fragments. Had he been but a man 
who respected the constitution of his country, he 
would have honestly and faithfully executed the 
laws, and preserved peace and unity to the settlers 
of Kansas, no matter from what section they came. 
But, thank God, there is given to this offended 
people one way, and only one way, of escape at 
this moment, and that is the election of Millard 
Fillmore. If this shall be done, the Union and the 
constitution are vindicated, and the interests of this 
nation will continue as one people. 

Let no false ambition seduce you from the path 
of duty ; let no desire for political power or place 
ever swerve you from tenaciously adhering to prin- 
ciple. Remember the lesson Franklin Pierce has 
taught you, that to gain the Presidency by fraud, 
is to divest it of all its honor ; and that it is far 



132 REVIEW. 

better to pursue the vocation in life to which you 
are mentally adapted, than to aspire to that to 
which you are incompetent. Had Mr. Pierce con- 
tinued in New Hampshire, and contented himself 
by an honest attention to his business profession, 
instead of intriguing for the ofi6.ce nature never 
fitted him to fill, he might have lived and died 
respected by his fellow-men. He would have 
saved himself the trial which has proved his 
moral as well as intellectual deficiency, and been 
secured from temptations to self-aggrandizement 
which he was unable to resist, and prevented the 
shock to the peace and liberties of this people 
which years cannot overcome. 

My countrymen, if, on the fourth of March, 
1857, the conduct and actings of Franklin Pierce's 
executive were certainly to end forever, this 
analysis of his administration would not now 
be written. But such is not the fact. And, so 
far as the party which nominated James Buchanan 
are concerned, they have expressly avowed their 
purpose to perpetuate through him the identical 
policy which has now brought disaster and blood- 
shed upon our beloved country. And Pierce's 
administration, therefore, arc as anxiously labor- 



REVIEW. 133 

ing to secure the election of James Buchanan, 
as if he, Mr. Pierce, was now before the people. 
Let every American vote understandingly in the 
next presidential election, and know that there is 
a perfect union and communion between the friends 
and supporters of these two men, Buchanan 
and Pierce ; and whoever votes for Buchanan 
votes just as much to perpetuate the dynasty of 
Franklin Pierce as though his name were on the 
ticket. 

Mr. Buchanan has endorsed the present national 
executive, and declares himself the platform which 
broke down the Missouri compromise, which com- 
promise he himself assisted to make, thirty-six 
years ago, the repeal of which has opened the flood- 
gates of internal discord and civil strife in the land. 

The platform of the Cincinnati Convention, 
which James Buchanan personates, if carried out, 
would lead to the inevitable degradation and ruin 
of the American people. It says, " The time has 
come for the people of the United States to de- 
clare themselves in favor of free seas, and a pro- 
gressive free trade throughout the world." This 
doctrine is more baneful to the interests of the 
American laboring man than even a foreign war. 
12 



134 REVIEW. 

Americans, what is free trade^ but taking money 
directly from your pockets to pay the expenses of 
the government, instead of putting duties on 
imported goods, which you do not feel? If 
James Buchanan is elected, you are to have equal 
taxation, which, allowing there are twenty-five 
millions of people, will make each man, woman, 
and child, have to pay three dollars apiece yearly. 

Mr. Buchanan approves, too, of ten cents a day 
as the wages of labor ! Think of this ! The 
Cincinnati Convention did not consider the ills we 
now endure were sufficient, while the government 
is pampering foreign and domestic pets, and squan- 
dering eighty millions of the people's money ; so it 
goes to taxing the poor to increase their burdens. 

Americans, it would be better now to expend 
one hundred millions to elect Millard Fillmore, 
whom you know and have tried ^ than to elect 
Buchanan. He may cost us our liberties. In the 
other case, the money would soon be returned to 
the people ten-fold, in the confidence and prog- 
ress and peace it would bring upon the whole 
Union. 

With a war within our own borders upon a ter- 
ritory twice as large as England, Mr. Buchanan 



REVIEW. 135 

is pledged also to carry out the Ostend manifesto, 
if elected. Now what would ensue, Americans, 
if that were acted out ? We answer, war, imme- 
diately, with England, France, and Spain. And 
all commerce between the United States and the 
western coast of Europe would that moment 
cease. This would stop all importations of cotton 
and bread-stuffs in Europe, and precipitate those 
countries also into anarchy and revolution. 

The real meaning of that Ostend manifesto is 
concealed upon its face. It is deep, dark, and 
malignant ; and, if ever enforced, it will be by 
making the American people wade through seas 
of blood ! As we have already seen, it was the 
work of European revolutionists and American 
demagogical tricksters. They who called them- 
selves Americans were mostly foreign born, with 
foreign hearts, like Soule & Co. To this degrad- 
ing business Mr. Buchanan became the pliant 
tool, because he wished to succeed Franklin 
Pierce at Washington, and was made to believe, 
therefore, this was the very best move. 

It is the interest, aim, and wish of all true 
Americans to remain at peace ; and, least of all, 
to go to war with our best customers abroad, from 



136 REVIEW. 

whom we buy, and to whom we sell. And it is 
all idle to try to force conviction upon the minds 
of the American people, that it is their duty to 
inflict a blow upon any nation, without their 
rights have been sacrificed or their principles in- 
vaded. 

We are already possessed of an area of terri- 
tory only one sixth less than the fifty-nine states 
of Europe put together. We are ten times larger 
than Great Britain and France, and one and a 
half times larger than Eussia in Europe. Hence 
we have no occasion for getting into war to acquire 
more territory, for many years to come. Better 
far to be making treaties, to send our Protestant 
Bible, our tracts and missionaries, to enlighten 
Mexico's eight millions of benighted papists, and 
other countries upon this continent, than to bring 
a population of ignorant paupers and criminals, 
who could never appreciate our Anglo-American 
liberty, under the ?egis of American laws. 

Now, my countrymen, you see, precisely, what 
you have to expect by perpetuating the demo- 
cratic executive of Franklin Pierce. The same 
home and a worse foreign policy, the same anti- 
American feeling, and contemptible subserviency 



REVIEW. 137 

to the foreign Koman Catholic hierarchy. You 
ask, how do we know this ? We answer, that it 
is as well understood that James Buchanan traded 
with the foreign Catholic vote in 1852, for Pierce, 
which put an Irish Catholic in the cabinet, from 
Pennsylvania, as that he defeated Henry Clay, 
for the presidency, in Pennsylvania, in 1844, 
when he practised the gross fraud upon that peo- 
ple, and declared to them that James K. Polk 
was a better tariff man than Henry Clay. But 
for this, Mr. Clay would have filled the office of 
President, to which he was most clearly elected, 
by the votes of his devoted countrymen. 

It is time there was an end to this compact 
sale of Irish and German votes. And the Amer- 
ican party fears not to say, that German and 
Irish bodies, armed under their own flag, must 
not, and shall not, as foreigners, interfere with 
our just political rights, to elevate aspiring Amer- 
ican demagogues, of any party. 
12* 



LIST OF BOOKS 

PUBLISEED BY 

JAMES FRENCH & CO., 

78 Washington Street, Boston. 



SCnOOL BOOKS. 



FOSTER'S BOOK-KEEPING, by double and single 

ENTRY, both in single and copartnership business, exemplified in 
three sets of books. Twelfth Edition. 8vo. Cloth, extra. . 1 00 

FOSTER^S BOOK-KEEPING, by single entry, ex- 
emplified in two sets of books. Boards 38 

FRENCH'S SYSTEM OF PRACTICAL PENMAN- 
SHIP, founded on scientific movements ; combining the principles 
on which the method of teaching is based. — Illustrated by en- 
graved copies, for the use of Teachers and Learners. Twenty- 
seventh Edition 25 

This little treatise seems well fitted to teach everytliing which 
can bo taught of the theory of Penmanship. The style proposed 
is very simple. The copperplate fiic-similes of JNIr. French's 
writing are as neat as anything of the kind we ever saw. — 
Tost. 

Mr. French has illustrated his theory with some of the moat 
elegant specimens of execution, which prove him master of Ins 
science. — Courier. 

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